


The fire in which we were forged

by liripip



Series: Room for three [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Omnic Crisis, Overwatch Striketeam, Pre-Canon, a lot of violence and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-26 11:48:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15662631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liripip/pseuds/liripip
Summary: Gabriel Reyes isn't ready to carry the fate of humanity on his shoulders, but the fate of humanity doesn't seem to care about his feelings.Fortunately, his second in command is a force of nature on the battlefield, capable and fearless to the point of recklessness. Unfortunately, Gabriel is too in love with him to ever want to put him in harm's way.





	The fire in which we were forged

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first big bang as a writer and I would never have made it through without some help. 
> 
> [foldingcranes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foldingcranes/pseuds/foldingcranes), thank you for encouraging me and stress-crying with me and always cheering me both on and up. Ilu. 
> 
> [crookedfingers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedfingers/pseuds/crookedfingers), for fighting a cursed document for me and in the process exposing several glaring plot holes. If this makes sense, send crook a cookie. Or a fancy charcoal ice cream. Thank you so much. 
> 
> My wonderful, amazing partner artists, [Squiddy ](https://twitter.com/a_squiddy) and [Val](http://asparklethatisblue.tumblr.com/). You will find their work taking your breath away as you progress through the story. Please do send them some love
> 
> Note: This is part of a series but this fic and all the others can be read as stand-alone.

[x](https://twitter.com/a_squiddy/status/1030167922985979905)

******2046-05-04**

 

It's a bright day in early May when Gabriel is called into the colonel's office. He's still limping, two bullets through the thigh will do that to you, and his left wrist is stiff and weak from weeks in a cast. But the months-long siege of Los Angeles is broken, and his sister and nephew are safe.

 

His parents are not. It would be wrong to say that he's given up hope, more that he has resigned himself to the fact that he'll probably never know. He's on top of it, for the most part. Jack is there when he isn't.

 

The door opens at his hand on the scanner, and the colonel rises from her seat. Thinking of her as 'the colonel' after so many months of calling her Langston is weird, like she's suddenly a whole different person once he knows her rank and history. He guesses she is, in a way: She's been practicing a leadership style that almost made him forget he was still in the military, letting her SEP squads set their own priorities and smoothing the way for them. Her sudden steely refusal to let them enter LA when the omnics came had been a shock to him. He's forgiven her for it, not because _objectively_ he knew she was right, but because he found out that she too had family in the city.

 

A short black woman in a brightly patterned red dress rises from one of the two chairs opposite Langston's desk, smile bright and practiced on her face.

 

"Ah, Captain Reyes," Langston says, leaning forward on her heavy desk, haloed by the sunlight streaming in through the wide windows. The grass out on the exercise field is thick and green, swampy from heavy rain during the past week. Jack's been coming back to their room with green stains up past his knees. "Nice to see you back on your feet."

 

"Thank you, ma'am." Moving closer, seeing past the blinding light, she looks exhausted, dark circles under her eyes. He doesn't ask about her daughter, but Langston gives him a barely-there shake of the head anyway. He responds with a mute lowering of the eyes. Some experiences have a way of binding people together.

 

"I'd like you to meet Undersecretary Adawe of the United Nations," she says, gesturing to the woman standing politely in front of him.

 

"A pleasure," Adawe says with a smile and a melodic lilt to her words. Gabriel's eyes narrow slightly. She smiles like a politician, too clean and too hard, and Gabriel is instinctively on edge as he shakes her offered hand. Her handshake is firm without being hard, authoritative yet non-threatening. He thinks she probably practices it daily.

 

The last time he spoke to her kind, he ended up a lab rat for over a year and nearly got himself killed in a hospital bed.

 

"I have a proposition for you, Captain. But please, sit down." She half wrestles his crutch away from him and does a surprisingly effective job for such a small woman of manhandling him into a chair, then graciously offers him coffee from Langston's own tray. He catches a sardonic little twinkle in the colonel's eye at that, and he accepts lest the undersecretary tries to force feed it to him.

 

Once he's seated and supplied, she turns to the desk in front of her and starts tapping, bringing up several memos, their contents blurred out and blocked with bright red Top Secret stamps.

 

"The UN is planning an initiative, international, something the omnics do not expect. I want you to be its second in command."

 

Gabriel frowns and looks to Langston.

 

"Are you asking or ordering?"

 

"You can volunteer if you want to," Langston says with a smirk, inspecting her cuticles. "I'm sure it will look flattering in your biography."

 

Alright then. Play with the politician it is.

 

"Undersecretary?" Gabriel asks, and she smiles winningly. "I accept."

 

Adawe looks delighted and places her palm on the desk scanner. The documents unblur.

 

* * *

 

"Your unit will be commanded by Colonel Balderich von Adler, commander of the German Crusader forces." Adawe taps at the desk surface, and a photograph of a large middle-age man with a truly impressive mustache hovers over the table along with a list of military accomplishments.

 

She taps and his own portrait flickers into view, the accompanying list looking very short next to von Adler's.

 

"You will assist him with tactical analysis, something I'm told you excel in."

 

Gabriel nods once, not bothering to fake modesty. His lips twitch up into a half-grin, as insincere as Adawe's. Two can play at being friends.

 

"I'm also good at shooting stuff."

 

"Wonderful. Colonel Langston has recommended Sergeant Morrison for the shooting stuff part of the assignment, but I'm sure he'll appreciate the help."

 

On the other side of the desk, Langston smothers a snort.

 

Adawe taps, and a profile of Jack joins the party, listed as both a medic and combat operative. He looks so odd in his official photograph, his expression blank and empty. Gabriel doesn't like it. It's not a natural expression that his face just falls into, like Gabriel's supposed resting murder face. No, Jack only looks like that when he's unhappy and trying to hide it.

 

"You will also be joined by the top-performing sniper in the Egyptian army. I'm told she's an expert... 'stuff shooter'."

 

A smile plays around the corner of her lips, and were they really on as good terms as they pretend to be it would take the edge of her gentle mockery.

 

"Okay," Gabriel says with a frown, looking instead at the profile that just joined them. Ana Amari, Cpt., it reads, along with a list of commendations nearly as long as von Adler's, though he must have fifteen years on her. He squints. There's something odd about her eyes, something besides the tattoo curling down under the left one.

 

"That's a good basis for a team, madam undersecretary, but--"

 

"'Gabrielle' will do," she beams at him. "I think of myself as a part of it, though I will fight this war from behind my desk rather than the trenches."

 

Gabriel very carefully does not make a face. Seeing Langston in action has been eye-opening as far as the administrative branch of their armed forces go, but he doubts this political creature has Langston's grit.

 

"Madam undersecretary," he continues as expressionless as he can manage, and the wattage of her pleasantry dims slightly. Fine wrinkles twitch into existence at the bridge of her nose, a second of real emotion before she composes herself again. "What's the angle? What are we supposed to do?"

 

Adawe taps the desk, and a fifth portrait appears. It features a surly-looking blond man of about Gabriel's age.

 

"Torbjorn Lindholm," Adawe enunciates carefully. It doesn't ring a bell. "Previously a senior engineer of the Ironclad Guild." Okay, Gabriel knows who they are. He nearly died to one of their failed experiments only three weeks ago.

 

"I thought they went underground," Gabriel says. He would have done the same, if his name was on the patent that set off the robot apocalypse.

 

"They did. It has taken us months to track him down. The first stage of your mission will be to apprehend him and..." She shoots a glance at the photograph of their quarry. "Convince him."

 

Gabriel frowns and chews on the inside of his cheek. He doesn't like the by-any-means-necessary that is implied in her words. It feels wrong in the sunlight, the bright rays playing in the patterns of Adawe's dress, and he thinks it will feel worse still in the darkness.

 

Adawe gives him a look.

 

"Do you understand me, Captain?"

 

Gabriel glances over at Langston, who gives him a nearly imperceptible nod. Something clenches in his gut, but he keeps it off his face as well as he can and meets Adawe's gaze squarely.

 

"Yes, ma'am," he says, neutral. As bland as that fucking awful photo of Jack.

 

"Good," Adawe continues crisply, her smile back in place. "Now, once you have ensured his cooperation, I want him to have a look at this," she says, tapping a circular icon with something that might be either a stylized fighter jet or a pair of praying hands in it.

 

"Colonel von Adler has been given the other part of this file for safekeeping, and it is imperative that its existence stays hidden until Mr. Lindholm gives us a way to weaponize it."

 

"Reyes," Langston says, and Gabriel looks up to see her eyebrow raised. "Hidden from your team, too. Including Morrison."

 

"Yes ma'am," he says, face blank. Officially, she doesn't know about him and Jack. Off the record, he thinks, Langston knows exactly what Jack brought him for breakfast this morning.

 

Adawe slides the orange segment of the symbol around, circling back to where it began, and a complex diagram spreads itself above the holographic surface. It speaks of infection vectors and genetic algorithms and recursive cognition, and Gabriel squints. It's something to do with AI development, he's been around enough technical experts to pick up a few words, but he can't really tell what it means.

  
"What do you know about cognitive programming, Captain?"

 

Gabriel chews on the inside of his cheek in thought. He thinks he can get the definition right, but he doesn't know how to do it. He doesn't know how to read this diagram in front of him.

 

"Not enough, I imagine."

 

Adawe smiles her politician's smile again. The wrinkles around her eyes scrunch up in something he'd interpret as approval from someone less schooled in facial expression. She claps her hands together and flashes even white teeth at him in a friendly grin. Gabriel keeps his expression neutral.

 

"Me neither, I'm afraid, the poor man who presented this to the committee looked quite frazzled when he was done."

 

Gabriel waits, until Adawe evidently gives up on building report with him and carries on as if she'd never stopped.

 

"Our researchers believe they have identified what delineates the God programs from the previous generations of intelligences controlling the Omnics. This is a program -- a sketch of a program, the actual payload needs another few key pieces of information to be written -- that will break the God program's control over their Omnic troops and allow us to end the threat."

 

Gabriel meets her eyes, his skepticism to her polish taking second seat to his curiosity, a million possibilities racing through his mind.

 

"In layman's terms, the God programs have mutated their code to take advantage of the hive structure of Omnic intelligence. They were written to share information with nearby units so all of them could work more efficiently -- in essence, the minds are linked and collectively controlling the bodies."

 

Gabriel nods. This much he knows from the news.

 

"And the God programs..?" he asks.

 

"The God programs have made themselves queens of those hives. They're not gods," she says, her nose scrunching up in an expression of distaste that Gabriel's gut tells him is completely genuine. "They're despots. They've enslaved the very minds of their own people."

 

Gabriel swallows.

 

"What does that mean for us?"

 

Adawe fixes him with her eyes. The easy smile is gone, instead she lets Gabriel see right into her, see the determination burning deep behind the bright dress and friendly mannerisms. His mouth feels dry. ' _Do not cross this woman_ ', his instincts tell him. She leads with amicability. If that doesn't get her what she wants, he knows, she will find a way that does.

 

She blinks, and the mask is back in place, flowery curtains to the windows of her iron soul.

 

"We liberate the Omnics. Make them the equals of their gods, in will if not in processing power. We do not believe the majority of them will want to continue the war for themselves."

 

He has to admit it's an elegant solution to the problem.

 

Free will. Real consciousness, individuality, and with that the concept of death. Adawe is certain that will be enough to detain them, give them enough pause to let her negotiate.

 

The omnics are strong, but on a global scale, they are _few._ Roughly a hundred million units, most of them built for farms and warehouses. No amount of combat software or welded on rocket launchers can hide the fact when they're fighting souped-up forklifts. Military units numbering less than five million versus nearly fifteen billion humans, and not enough rare-earth metals on the planet for the omnics to ever increase their ranks to anything remotely resembling the combined force of the world's human armies.

 

The millions of people they have killed, in what has seemed like the end of the world Gabriel knew, has barely put a dent in the global population. He startles when Adawe says so, so clinical. His home lies in rubble. His parents are, most likely, dead. His sister is hopping around on crutches in a tent camp, her leg torn off below the knee.

 

"We can end this," Adawe says, leaning forward and looking him in the eyes. "The omnics keep fighting, because at the moment they are only concerned with the survival of their kind. If we make them aware of the survival of the self, I fully believe we will have a cease-fire within six months."

 

Gabriel looks to Langston, but she gives nothing away. His eyes scan over the diagrams spread out over the holodesk, pretending it means anything to him to buy time. Can she be right? The war has lasted for seven years, peace declared time and time again, only for the omnic threat to resurface a few months later with devastating casualties as a result.

 

He's weary, they all are, the life he imagined for himself nothing but a boyhood fantasy. Jack wanted to go to college after the war, says he's too old for it now. Gabriel thinks he's wrong-- he's not twenty-five yet, an entire generation has had their lives put on hold-- but Jack doesn't want to hear it. Trying to talk to him about it only leads to Jack holding back angry tears, so what's the point? He wants Jack to be happy, Gabriel doesn't care whether he goes to college or not.

 

"Okay," he says, dropping some of his personal fortifications. "I'm in."

 

"Excellent. I will forward you the documents. For now," she says, lifting her color-coordinated purse onto her lap and rooting around in it, "I entrust you this. It is one of the keys needed to decrypt our files. Do not lose it."

 

* * *

 

"What'd she say?" Jack asks, getting to his feet from his seat on the bed as Gabriel enters what is their joint room in anything but name. Officially, it's Zelinski who shares it with Gabriel, but in the interest of everyone's sanity and with Jack's roommate's enthusiastic approval, they'd done a little switch around.

 

Jack's phone lays open on the bedspread, and Gabriel has time to recognize the picture of Jack's mother at the top of the conversation before he clicks the screen off, a guilty look on his face. Jack looks at the black screen for a second, before evidently deciding that if they're already thinking about it he might as well speak the words. "Anything about your parents?" he asks, reaching a hand to curl around Gabriel's wrist.

 

"Nah," Gabriel shakes his head, and Jack squeezes, that helpless look on his face that Gabriel knows means well but is beginning to grate on his nerves. He's the one who's grieving, he's not in the mood for Jack having feelings about it right now. He can only handle his own pain in bits and pieces, so he shuts it down, pushes the thoughts away."How are yours doing? Is the shelter ready?"

 

"Just about." The skin around Jack's eyes tighten, and for the first time Gabriel catches on to that it might not just be empathy that has Jack a little off balance right now. "They had Leroy put down," he says in those clipped tones Gabriel hates, and before he knows it he's pulled Jack in and wrapped his arms around him.

 

"I'm sorry," he whispers into his neck, as much for the loss of a beloved dog as for his own pettiness. It's not Jack's fault, he reminds himself. Jack has done everything in his power to be there for him. Lashing out is to be expected, perhaps, but that doesn't make it okay.

 

"Don't be," Jack says, voice breaking just a little. "He was just a dog, it's not--"

 

"Shut up," Gabriel says, holding him tighter. "You loved him. It's okay."

 

Jack sniffs against him, his breath hot and fast against the side of Gabriel's neck while Jack composes himself.

 

"What happened?" he asks when Jack's breathing has evened out, his palm stroking slowly up and down Jack's broad back.

 

"He kept escaping," Jack sighs, holding him back. "Busting out the hatch every time someone opened it, running around the field yapping at things." He swallows, and Gabriel presses his lips to the hinge of his jaw, nuzzling against the side of his face. Apparently it's his turn to be helpless in the face of his boyfriend's grief now, and he hates it. "They couldn't afford to have him give them away."

 

Jack says it like he wants to convince himself more than anything. _I'm sorry_ , Gabriel repeats, rocking him back and forth. It's probably the right call, he thinks, fond as he was of Jack's energetic, happy little mutt. It's war. _I'm really sorry_.

 

They stand like that for a while, until Jack sighs and pulls away, rubbing at his eyes.

 

"So what did Langston want?"

 

"We have a new assignment. Catch." Gabriel flips the badge Adawe had handed him through the air, and Jack catches it with a quizzical frown. Gabriel grins. "'Overwatch'. It's you and I, a Crusader, and one of the Egyptian snipers. And I'm not even allowed to tell you what we're doing until we're on the plane."

 

**2046-05-07**

 

They say the first casualty of battle is the plan. Theirs doesn't even make it that far.

 

Balderich von Adler does not meet them at the air field. Instead, they are met by a tired-looking young man whose eyes are red-edged with grief as he tells them of the colonel's sacrifice not two days past.

 

"Did someone collect his badge," Gabriel asks, his voice muted and gentle in the face of their guide's obvious pain. Jack looks at him strangely, risking an elbow to his arm when the man lowers his eyes to the tarmac. Of course Jack is confused: his badge is just a plate of metal. He has no idea about the intel hidden away in Gabriel's and von Adler's. If one is lost, then shit, what if the omnics have it, what if they realize there is a second part, if they have any idea what it is he needs to get this disk to safety _now--_

 

"Yes," the man says, and Gabriel gives a sigh of relief, prompting another strange look from Jack. _Later_ , Gabriel tries to tell him with his eyes, but Jack just tilts his head in confusion. "Balderich," the man leading them says, pauses and swallows, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears. "The colonel named his replacement in Overwatch before he died. Lieutenant Wilhelm. He has the badge now. If you'll please follow me, I will take you to him."

 

He leads them into a medical wing while Gabriel pretends to be preoccupied by the straps of his duffel bag and Jack shoots him questioning glances.

 

"What's the deal with the badge?" he hisses under his breath, eyes flicking between Gabriel's face and the back of their guide.

 

"Not now," Gabriel murmurs back, hoping Jack will let it go. Their commander is dead. He doesn't know this Lieutenant Wilhelm, or what will happen now. He outranks him, and Adawe named him second, so it looks like he just got saddled with command of this op. He has a feeling he'll have to keep more secrets than this from Jack soon enough.

 

They are led to a plain white door, closed while all the surrounding ones stand open, a summer breeze wafting through the corridor.

 

"The colonel's second in command," their guide says, his voice hushed with reverence. Gabriel wonders how many Crusaders there are, in total. They seem to be kind of a big deal. "Lieutenant Wilhelm. He's... The loss has been hard on him."

 

Before Gabriel has time to ask any further questions, the man opens the door -- it's not locked, at least -- and motions them through, and Gabriel sees no option but to go with the flow.

 

He thinks that for a whole two steps before his eyes fully register the man on the hospital bed. He's huge. Gabriel isn't a small man, tall and stronger than most even before the SEP, and Jack is perhaps an inch taller and about as wide, but. Lieutenant Wilhelm is _huge_. He's well over seven feet, Gabriel estimates, though it's difficult to tell when he's sitting in a bed, leaning on the headrest and studying them with thoughtful eyes. Eye. The left side of his face is covered in bandages, long strands of unwashed bright blonde hair hanging limply down his neck.

 

"Captain Reyes," he says, accented voice drooping sadly over the syllables. He holds Gabriel's startled gaze for a moment, and then drops his gaze with a heavy sigh. Von Adler's badge is in his hand, the metal still stained with something Gabriel realizes is probably its previous owner's blood. Wilhelm turns it this way and that in his lap. "My name is Reinhardt Wilhelm. Lieutenant. It--"

 

His voice breaks and it takes him a moment to compose himself.

 

"It was my arrogance that cost Balderich his life," he tells the medallion. Gabriel was expecting his voice to boom, but it's soft, deep but gentle like a placid sea. He looks up and stares Gabriel in the face, weighing him with one pale blue red-rimmed eye. "While I can never take his place, I ask that you let me render what service I can in his name."

 

He bows his head, and Gabriel blinks at Jack in confusion. They're soldiers, specialists, graduates of their nations' respective super soldier programs, but the association Gabriel gets, even with the antiseptic smell in his nose and nurses striding by in the corridor behind, is one of a knight swearing allegiance to a king, a warrior who has lost his lord and his purpose with him.

 

They really do take their armor seriously, these guys.

 

Gabriel doesn't feel in any way ready to fill this void, but he can't back down here, he couldn't do that to his mission or to this lost, hurt giant of a man.

 

"Yeah, alright," he says, looking hopefully to Jack for some sort of clue on how to behave in this situation. Jack swallows, looking just as lost. Okay. "Yes, I accept your offer. My name is Gabriel Reyes, formerly a captain of the US Marines. This is Sergeant Morrison, he's my SIC."

 

"Call me Jack," Jack says, reaching out a hand. It's dwarfed as Wilhelm clasps it. "I was Army. Rangers."

 

"A pleasure, I'm sure," Wilhelm returns, the smile on his lips heavy and not reaching his eyes. "What do you mean, 'formerly'?"

 

"Because as far as official records are concerned," Gabriel says with a smirk, "both of us were discharged three years ago. Now, let's get you up to speed."

 

* * *

 

Langston hails him late that night.

 

"I hope I'm not interrupting your beauty sleep, Captain," she says, sipping her coffee and looking enormously sarcastic.

 

"Let me just get the rollers out of my hair," Gabriel counters in a dry voice, discreetly pushing at Jack to keep him out of the frame. Langston's aide had booked them separate rooms, and while he assumes that the colonel knows, him and Jack getting caught on video together could still get them all in trouble if the higher-ups decide to intervene.

 

He rubs at his eyes for effect and lays his comm camera side down to slip on a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. "What can I do for you, ma'am?"

 

"I wanted a word in private with you," she says, eyebrows rising as she makes sure to articulate the 'private' with clear intent. Gabriel tries to keep his face neutral. As long as she gets to claim ignorance he's pretty sure she doesn't care about his love life.

 

"Just go to the bathroom, Reyes," she says at last, with an exasperated huff of breath.

 

Chastened, he scampers away, shooting Jack a look out of the corner of his eye. He looks curious. Gabriel feels more nervous, but is trying to not let it show.

 

"So," she says once he has locked the door behind him. "I hear von Adler is out of the picture. That's unfortunate."

 

Gabriel nods, leaning back on the cool tiles of the wall. His reflection catches his eyes and he bites back his chagrin. There's a huge purple hickey on the side of his neck. Maybe he can try to play this as having picked up some German girl during the day rather than having been carrying on a poorly-hidden relationship with his squad-mate for the last two years.

 

"I've discussed the matter with Adawe, and we agree that in his absence, you are the best choice for commanding this op. Wilhelm will do as your Crusader."

 

Gabriel nods again, unsurprised. He's looked at Amari's records. She's an excellent sniper, but too conservative, unwilling risk her subordinates. Gabriel bites the inside of his cheek. No such fault in Langston, he thinks with a sour edge.

 

"Which brings me to the subject of this little chat: I want you to send Morrison home."

 

"What?"

 

"I'll send Stevens instead, she's close enough in performance scores."

 

"Jack's not-- We're a _team_! We've been a team since SEP, we're--"

 

Langston holds up a hand, cutting him off.

 

"You worked with Stevens when Morrison was recovering from Phoenix, it went fine."

 

"But Morrison and I--"

 

"Reyes." Langston cuts him off again, holds up both hands until he closes his mouth. "Shut up, and sit down."

 

With a sigh, Gabriel flips the toilet lid down and takes a seat, rubbing the space between his eyebrows where a tension headache is already beginning to set in.

 

"This is not about rules, you went outside that when you signed up for the enhancement program. Who you share your bed with is none of my business." She waves her hand dismissively, then locks onto him with her eyes. "It _is_ my business when it interferes with your job. I don't trust you to make sound decisions where he's concerned."

 

"We've run dozens of ops together."

 

"And your tactical judgment turned markedly worse whenever he was at risk." She sits back in her chair, sipping from her mug. "I don't expect you to like it. I expect you to follow my orders and send him home, because I don't trust you to remember that Sergeant Morrison's well-being is less important than achieving your objective."

 

"He's not gonna like this," Gabriel mutters, and Langston glares at him.

 

"As your commanding officer, _Captain_ , I don't give a flying fuck what either of you like. Stevens will be there at thirteen hundred tomorrow. You get Morrison on the transport back even if it means bodily dragging him there and wrapping him up in a cargo net. Understood?"

 

Gabriel sulks, but answers with a 'yes ma'am' anyway. Langston leans back in her chair, observing him.

 

"Gabriel," she says. It's not the first time she's used his given name, but it's not a common occurrence either. "Tell me something. Why did you join up?"

 

Gabriel sighs, because he knows what she's getting at. The class of SEP graduates isn't big, and Langston's been their CO for nearly two years. She knows him, and he knows just what she's going to say.

 

"To protect my family, ma'am." Grief stings in the back of his nose, and he fights it down. She's trying to get to him, poke at his open wounds. He wont let her see that it hurts.

 

"And isn't Morrison getting pretty close to family?"

 

"Yes, but-" Langston opens her mouth but Gabriel narrows his eyes and keeps talking, staring her down. Nobody has ever accused him of being overly deferential. "Jack's a _fighter_. He's not going to stay _safe_ just because I send him back." His brow furrows. "I can protect him better if he's with me."

 

"Captain," Langston says, looking tired. "I want you focused. On the mission, not on Morrison."

 

It is at that moment that something scrapes at the lock, and the door is pulled open to reveal Jack standing there in the dark room with a screwdriver in his hand.

 

"Sorry," he says, looking only slightly sheepish. "You were talking kind of loud." On the commscreen Gabriel sees Langston mouth something foul and roll her eyes. "Since it's about me, I thought I might get to add something?"

 

Gabriel hides his smile behind a fist, and Langston glares out of her tiny monitor, going as far as to lower her glasses to scorch Jack all the better with her gaze.

 

"This is a private conversation between officers, sergeant."

 

"My apologies, ma'am. I figured it was better you _knew_ I could hear every word."

 

Langston raises a hand in a weary motion.

 

"Go on then," she says. "Plead your case."

 

"Captain Reyes wasn't expecting to command this operation. It's a tremendous responsibility to suddenly be saddled with. Stevens is an excellent soldier, but Captain Reyes will need more than that. He will need a friend."

 

"Spare me the Disney bullshit," she says, but her lip is quirked up just a little. She always had a soft spot for him.

 

"He's not wrong," Gabriel says, recognizing a promising approach. "I _am_ feeling a little out of my depth."

 

Langston leans back, humming noncommittally at them. She's give them a chance to convince her, or she would have immediately shut this down.

 

"I know Gabriel," Jack says, and Gabriel is sure that neither the slip into informality nor the 'subtle' press of his hand were accidental. "I can support him in ways Stevens can't."

 

"Oh I bet you can," Langston mutters under her breath, and Jack flushes. "Alright. Boys. Real talk. What I'm getting at here is that, much as I may have developed a certain sense of affection for you both, I don't _need_ you to survive this mission. I need you to get it done. And if Morrison is staying, I need you to make me a _promise_. Not for me, for our entire species."

 

"What?" Gabriel asks, tense and worried.

 

"Not you. Morrison."

 

"Yes?"

 

"You're not a bad tactician yourself. The moment you know that Reyes is trying to protect you over achieving the objective, you goddamn go get that objective yourself. Are we clear?"

 

"Crystal."

 

Gabriel swallows. Langston turns to him.

 

"And would you still rather have him than Stevens, knowing that?"

 

 _No_ , Gabriel thinks with a sinking feeling. Jack is _reckless_ ; he can't make those calls, can't see the possibilities the way Gabriel can

 

" _Yes_ ," Jack hisses at him, kicking him in the shin. "I'm better and you know it." And fuck if he isn't right. Stevens is fine. Jack is... Jack is reckless and impulsive, but he's also brilliant, quick and decisive, the best damn brawler Gabriel has ever seen. The perfect complement to his own style. "Come on. You need me."

 

"Yeah," Gabriel says, wondering if he just sealed his own fate, if this will be the conversation he has to relive for eternity. If he will have to watch Jack throw himself at the first damn Bastion they see just because he interpreted Gabriel's attempt to go in with some sort of plan as exaggerated caution.

 

Langston keeps talking and Gabriel follows along well enough to ask the expected questions, but really he's lost in his own head. Jack. Brave, bullheaded, beautiful Jack. That damn promise to Langston is going to get him killed. She leaves them with further instructions passed on from Adawe and wishes them a good night with a faint smirk.

 

He doesn't have a good night. It's warm, Jack's skin too hot where they touch, the sheets twisting around his limbs like vines trying to pull him down into the underworld.

 

When he wakes up, there's a text message from Langston blinking innocently on his comm.

 

 _The offer stands_ , it says. _Let me know when you want him picked up._

 

 

**2046-05-10**

 

 

Meeting Captain Ana Amari is a lot less dramatic. She's flown commercial into Frankfurt, and is waiting for them at a café at arrivals. Even without having read her file, he could have easily picked her out from the civilians from the way she carries herself and the wry amusement in her face as she scans them from behind her takeaway mug.

 

She's elegant, in a relaxed, confident way, somehow managing to dangle a rifle case from well-manicured fingernails without it looking out of place.

 

"You're Reyes?" she says when they walk up, and he doesn't think it was accidental that she left out his title. She smiles, and the challenge dancing in her eyes is so subtle that he think he would have missed it had he not been drawn in by the odd twinkle of her left iris. The implant. Another enhanced soldier. The US went the Captain America route, the Germans went medieval, and the Egyptians managed to link high-definition cameras with digital zoom directly to their top operatives' optic nerves.

 

He wonders how long it would take them to stop the crisis if they started sharing secrets and not just manpower.

 

"And you must be Captain Amari," he replies, cheeky grin turning the politeness around into something insubordinate. He's not: Amari has held the captain rank for longer than he has, was already rising in the ranks when he graduated high school, but Adawe has put him in charge and he won't have her undermining him. He's compared their records, and he knows he's earned his place.

 

She's the better shot. He's the better tactician.

 

Even so, he has doubts, and he hates that he can never let them show. Not even when he's alone with Jack, which... It's hard. There were no ranks in the SEP. They're used to being peers. Now, Gabriel has to make the person he's been sharing all his insecurities with for the last two years believe he has the situation under control, and it might have been easier if his second _wasn't_ someone he's so used to being honest with.

 

Amari nods, raising an eyebrow as she evaluates him with a small knowing smile. Gabriel keeps his posture relaxed, refusing the impulse to squirm under her gaze. What's in that eye, anyway? The Egyptians wouldn't share. Maybe she has x-ray vision, maybe she's looking at his dick right now and that's why she looks so amused.

 

"Help me carry this?" she says, amiable as anything, and Gabriel has a split second to weigh politeness against the fact that she obviously got it here on her own. She's testing him, he thinks, his eyebrow lifting a fraction of an inch, and Amari smiles back, sharp and rising to the challenge.

 

It's... kinda fun, actually, her toying with him and him giving as good as he gets, but it's interrupted before it gets really interesting by Wilhelm charging forward from where he and Jack were waiting by the doors. The man hoists not just the large duffel on the ground but also the rifle case slung over Amari's shoulder into his thick meaty arms, and Amari looks startled for the first time. Her eyes go wide as she takes in how _huge_ Wilhelm truly is, and she turns to Gabriel with her mouth open in something he can intimately recognize as just his own reaction.

 

* * *

 

Wilhelm bangs his head getting into the car and grabs it, cursing in German. Gabriel turns to check on him as Jack taps their destination into the driver's panel, and finds Amari already poking at his head, Wilhelm looking almost comically large folded over to give her access.

 

"You already have a bit of a bump," she says, letting go and patting his hair back into place, "but it's not bleeding. Nothing to worry about."

 

Wilhelm thanks her and sits up as straight as he can in the low cabin, still rubbing at his head.

 

Amari tilts her head as she looks up at him.

 

"You only lost it recently, didn't you?"

 

Wilhelm turns to her in surprise, and she elaborates.

 

"The eye," she says, tapping under her cybernetic one. "I noticed when we were walking. You move like you haven't gotten used to it."

 

"Five days," Wilhelm confirms with a sigh. "We lost something far more valuable that day, too."

 

Amari's smile is kind.

 

"Losing an eye is still difficult. I... _mourned_ for mine, and I had agreed to having it removed."

 

"They took your eye?" Jack asks, turning around as the car pulls out of the parking lot. "Damn, and I thought we had it rough."

 

Amari laughs. She has a nice laugh, Gabriel thinks as she makes an ugly snorting noise. It's real. Human.

 

"What do you think this is, a contact?" She taps again, and the targeting systems in her eye come alive, glowing faintly. "I was blind in it for two months before my brain figured out how to interpret the signals. I kept walking into things."

 

Jack tilts his head, focusing on Wilhelm.

 

"Couldn't you get one too?" he asks. "Not like that, maybe, but there are transplants. My aunt has one."

 

Wilhelm looks down at his massive hands, his remaining eye blinking slowly.

 

"No," he says finally, straightening up. "No, too many good soldiers lost more than an eye that day." He looks at Jack, looks at all of them. "It would not be right to go unscarred from such a thing."

 

* * *

 

"You're brooding," Jack tells him that night, his stubble long enough to be noticeable through Gabriel's t-shirt as they lie together in their too-narrow hotel bed. A warm hand slides under his shirt to idly toy with the hair growing beneath his belly button, and Gabriel arches into the touch, spreading his legs and hoping to be able to distract from the question. No such luck, apparently. "Tell me?" Jack says, looking at him with his best puppy eyes. "I'm supposed to be helping you."

 

"It's nothing."

 

"Yes it is."

 

 _How the hell am I supposed to pull this off,_ he wants to say, and doesn't.

 

"My folks," he says instead, and feels guilt stab him in the gut. Three days of command, and he's already sunk to using his parents' presumed deaths to lie to his boyfriend.

 

"Mmm," Jack hums into his shoulder, lifting his hands to somewhere moderately proper and cuddling closer, one warm hairy leg hooking over Gabriel's own. "Wanna talk about it?"

 

"Nah."

 

"Kay." Jack settles like a too-heavy, long-limbed thermal blanket, his stubble irritating even through the fabric of Gabriel's shirt and his knees hard and knobbly. It's too hot to be sleeping this close together. The ceiling fan whirrs above, testing his patience like every turn of the blades is scraping directly on his bared nerves, and Jack's breath on the skin of his neck just makes him feel trapped.

 

He can't push him off, though, not when he himself has invoked the bodily comfort clause of their relationship. So Gabriel sighs and resigns himself to his fate, one hand covering Jack's on his chest, the other wiggling free from where it had been stuck in between their bodies to stretch out under Jack's neck and into the not quite as hot and humid air.

 

He waits until Jack is asleep before untangling himself, then winds up just lying there looking at him. Two years together. A year as friends before that.

 

It feels like an eternity. He's not sure he can remember who he was on his own any longer. He doesn't think he _wants_ to.

 

JackandGabe, they have become. Langston had thought it was Jack running after him, as love- and starstruck as a puppy. Shows what she knows. Gabriel knows that he is gifted, always has known, but he's not... People _like_ Jack. They'll follow Gabriel because he's good at what he does, sometimes even because they like him and don't want him dying on his own, but they'll follow Jack because they _want_ to. He has that something, charisma, that quality that gives you, shit, King Arthur, those guys. He doesn't know how to use it yet, true, but Gabriel can see it, there beneath the surface.

 

He thinks von Adler had it too, judging by how lost Wilhelm seems without him.

 

 

**2046-05-11**

 

They arrive in Sweden in the early morning, Adawe calling as soon as he sets foot on the tarmac. Lindholm has stayed put in a house that officially belongs to his girlfriend's aunt, and while they are using fake names and IDs to evade automatic tracking, they do not seem overly inconvenienced by their life underground. Adawe sends him a recent surveillance camera picture of Ingrid Fredriksson, Lindholm's girlfriend. She's standing in a grocery store aisle with a baby strapped to her chest in one of those harnesses, calmly comparing two boxes of granola. Both she and the baby are wearing huge sunglasses, and that is the only concession to their hidden life that Gabriel can spot.

 

They pass by the store on their way into town, a half village, half suburb little place about an hour's drive from Gothenburg. It's mid-morning, and the streets are empty aside from a few retirees walking their dogs, and when they step out of the car a few blocks away from Lindholm's house the air smells sweet and flowery.

 

The house, when they reach it, is ordinary. Nice, in a suburban middle-class sort of way. It's a small two-story thing, built of white brick and surrounded by a lawn studded with little blue flowers, a gray cat watching them from under some waxy-looking bushes huddling along the wall. Gabriel feels a rush of jealous anger pulse through him. His parents are missing, presumed dead, along with nearly seven hundred thousand others from his home city. His sister is still hopping about on crutches because resources are too scarce to get her a wheelchair, let alone a fitted prosthetic. Jack's parents are sleeping in a concrete hole under a cornfield, his brother in basic instead of the law school he'd worked his ass off to get into, and their dog is buried in a sad little grave by their abandoned front porch.

 

And here, this. The fucker responsible for all of this gets to live a normal life in a normal house, with his girlfriend and kid, and unless Gabriel's really looking he can barely tell that the war has in any way impacted their quiet, comfortable life.

 

Something moves in a window, and when Gabriel turns to look a woman startles, eyes widening as it becomes obvious he's seen her. _Ingrid Fredriksson_ , he recognizes, just as she turns and starts sprinting towards the interior of the house.

 

" _Move!_ " Gabriel shouts, because while he wasn't expecting to have to use force to at least get a face-to-face with Lindholm, something in that woman's eyes left him no doubt that if he lets her out of his sight they will disappear off the radar and hide much better next time. He is peripherally aware of Jack setting off for the window at the same time that he launches himself toward the door, expecting to be able to rip it out of its frame with little effort. It doesn't budge. Somewhere around the corner, he hears glass breaking.

 

Slamming a foot up against the wall next to the door, he locks both hands around the handle and _pulls,_ feels the handle twisting under the force but not letting go.

 

"Allow me," Wilhelm says, one massive shoulder forward, crouched down like a bull prepared to charge as soon as Gabriel gets out of the impact zone.

 

Gabriel scrambles to the side, and Wilhelm charges, the wood groaning, the door slowly splintering as he digs his boots in and keeps pressing. The breath hisses out of him in one long, determined shove, until Wilhelm runs out of air and leans forward, hands braced on his knees as he catches his breath.

 

"I've got it," Gabriel says, "Move." He pats the large man on the back as he guides him aside, then slams his foot into the middle of the dent Wilhelm has left, one time, two times, three times. On the fourth kick the wood finally succumbs, and Gabriel can reach an arm through the hole and twist the lock, unlatching the series of bolts keeping the door fixed until it finally swings inward and he can set off after the beating of Jack's boots, the top of his head just disappearing down some stairs.

 

He finds him backed around a corner, hastily stretching an arm across his path when Gabriel tries to have a look.

 

"There's a fucking _turret_ in the garage," Jack hisses, waving Amari and Wilhelm in close to the wall as well when they come jogging down the hallway.

 

"What? Really?" Amari asks, pulling a compact mirror out of her pocket and looking around her. Jack pulls a large book out of the case behind her and offers it, and Amari pinches one half between the pages and cautiously extends her impromptu mirror holder. They get about a second of watching the large, red contraption swivel their way before the mirror is shot to pieces and Amari yanks her hand back as if burnt.

 

"It's set to non-lethal at the moment," a male voice calls from the doorway at the end of the corridor. "I could change that."

 

"Who are you?" a woman's voice calls from the same place. "What do you want?"

 

"My name's Gabriel Reyes," Gabriel tries. "Undersecretary Adawe of the United Nations sent me. We just want to talk."

 

"Pfah!" the man -- Lindholm, Gabriel assumes, spits. "'Talk', is it?"

 

"You want us to believe you jumped through the frigging window so you could _talk_?" the woman, Fredriksson, calls back. He hears something muted, and she exclaims in surprise. "You broke the door too?!"

 

"It took a while to find you," Gabriel says. "Didn't want to have to do it all again."

 

"Well it doesn't fucking look like we wanted to be found, does it?"

 

"Were you the one that chased me?" Fredriksson calls, and Gabriel nods to Jack.

 

"Go," he mimes. Time to put that charm to work for them.

 

"That was me," Jack calls, his entire expression and body language instantly shifting from annoyance to sympathy. "Jack Morrison, Sergeant First Class, US Army."

 

Gabriel hears another angry spitting noise, as well as something he can somehow understand as a vitriolic disavowal of everything American despite not speaking the language.

 

"I'm sorry about the window," Jack calls, and Gabriel smiles, charmed himself. "I'm going to step around the corner now. If you don't shoot me, I promise I'll replace it for you."

 

Lindholm growls suspiciously.

 

"Put your weapons on the floor, and keep your hands where I can see 'em."

 

"Of course." Jack hands Gabriel his sidearm, his face calm and confident. "I'm coming out now!"

 

He steps out, and Gabriel sees him smile -- his real smile, the one that makes his eyes sparkle.

 

"Hello," he says, and Gabriel knows from his tone that he's speaking to either a baby or a dog. Cat, maybe. "Can my team come out as well?"

 

"Slowly," Fredriksson says, "and with their hands up."

 

Jack waves them forward and Gabriel puts his sidearm on the floor, meeting Amari's eyes as she does the same, then steps out into the corridor.

 

It's short, just a few yards, the turret sitting squat in the middle and one door on each side between them and the barricade. Gabriel blinks. It looks to be solid steel, coming up out of the concrete floor and rising about four feet. Behind it stands Fredriksson with a shotgun pointed their way, and Lindholm holding a remote control and a baby wearing bright red ear protectors.

 

"Alright," he says, scowl cut from stone as the baby pulls on his beard. "You want to talk? Let's talk."

 

* * *

The baby's name is Johanna, and she is eight months old. After the initial hostilities, she is now sitting in Amari's lap and pulling on her hair while Wilhelm attempts to get her attention by wiggling his fingers.

 

Lindholm has uncapped the Overwatch badges and plugged them into his computer, which is like nothing Gabriel has ever seen. It has its own plumbing, it has huge battery packs, it has an old car engine -- the gasoline kind, not electric. While it chugs away at the encryption, its owner is dealing with his frustration by beating the shit out of a fucking _sword_ , which he just pulled out of the goddamn fully functioning _forge_ he apparently keeps in his garage, and... Gabriel is pretty sure it's not okay to make dwarf jokes about a guy who's four feet tall, no matter how much he's embracing the whole fantasy dwarf aesthetic, but he's making them to himself anyway and might secretly share the best ones with Jack later.

 

"It's for a faire," Fredriksson-- Ingrid, as she insists-- explains. Gabriel's thoughts grind to a halt because _seriously?_ She's blithely chattering on about the difference between longswords from different eras and regions and the pursuit of accurately recreating them, and all Gabriel can think about how the world is burning. Lindholm wrote the code that made the God Programs possible, and he has time for fucking ren faires? Gabriel hasn't been to one since high school. Shit, half the people he used to go with are probably dead.

 

At least the coffee is good, served with crunchy vanilla cookies that Jack takes an immediate liking to. He's also politely listening to Ingrid's impromptu lecture about swordfighting manuals when Torbjörn's-- he had _not_ invited them to call him by his first name, so Gabriel is going to do so out of spite-- behemoth of a computer beeps for their attention.

 

Torbjörn goes to look at it, hums and haws while Gabriel sips his coffee and studies him until laughter distracts him. Wilhelm has finally gotten the baby to pull on his hair instead, the little one gurgling gleefully as she paws at him. For the first time Gabriel sees the smile reach his eyes, eye, the grin tugging at the stitches on his cheek not seeming to bother him at all.

 

This fits better, Gabriel thinks, this is a better match for the personnel file he's memorized than the serious, solemn character they've known so far. This man he can see charging headfirst into a crowd of omnics, lust for battle and a good story to brag about far stronger than his sense.

 

He's worse than Jack, and Gabriel is quietly amazed.

 

"Yes," Lind-- Torbjörn says after a while, and Gabriel's focus switches back to him. "I see how this might work. Needs some edits, but nothing impossible."

 

"So you'll do it?" Amari asks, looking up from her tea.

 

"Hah. No. I'm deep enough in this shit as is."

 

Gabriel bites down on his temper before he lets loose more than an agitated huff.

 

"You have a damn responsibility to-" he starts, but Jack discreetly waves him down, eyes sparkling dangerously. Gabriel chokes back the rest of his rant to let him speak. Part of leading a successful op is knowing when your subordinates have a better chance at achieving the objective than you do.

 

"Think about the world your daughter will grow up in," Jack says instead, and Gabriel considers. Yes, he agrees, guilt and parental instinct is probably a better approach than just yelling at the man until he starts shooting at them again. "Even if you don't see much of the war here, global food yields are down 30% and falling. We only have so much stored away: we're going to see mass starvation within the year." Jack manages to only look sad and worried as he lays it out, involving Ingrid just as much. "Defeating the omnics isn't enough, we've become too reliant on them to sustain our population without their labor." He fiddles with his cuticles, and the next words are heartfelt, which just makes them all the more effective. "We need to end this now. The news keep focusing on Bastions this and OR-7s that. They're not the real problem, the agri units are. If they don't start working again, human casualties are going to number in the billions."

 

Gabriel sighs. He knows all this, these projections and worse ones, but there's something about Jack's delivery that never fails to get him.

 

"There's still time," Gabriel says, holding Torbjörn's eyes. "We can stop it. But we need your help."

 

And then Amari clears her throat.

 

"I have a daughter," she says, voice laced with grief and fear. "Fareeha. She's almost two." Her eyes close, and when they open they're all steel. "And there is _nothing_ I will not do to give her a future."

 

Wordlessly, Ingrid lifts her daughter back from Wilhelm's lap and hugs her close, kissing the soft wispy tufts of hair on her head. Torbjörn looks at them both, surrender already written on his face. Gabriel waits, waits until Ingrid nods once and Torbjörn deflates with a sigh.

 

"You just need me to write code?" he says, sooty hand scratching his hair out of his face. "No heroics, no tribunals?"

 

Gabriel nods. Torbjörn looks to Ingrid, sorrow in his eyes. Baby Johanna squeaks and bats her mother in the nose.

 

Ingrid sighs sadly, catching her daughter's hand before the next attack. Her smile is sad and crooked when she looks up.

 

"Come back with your shield or on it," she says, and Torbjörn snorts fondly.

 

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," he says, rubbing a finger between heavy eyebrows. "Okay. Fine. Tell me the specifications."

 

* * *

The plan itself isn't too complicated. Years ago, Lindholm designed the chip that eventually came to integrate the separate processing units in the omnic units to their joint consciousness. It wasn't an unintended effect per se-- it was exactly what the chip was built to do, a cost-effective way to synchronize large groups of units. No one thought to consider how it might interact with the later development of central control-intelligences.

 

The code they've brought with them is written to give all those omnics a sense of self separate from the hive, essentially turning control of them into a psychological matter rather than a programming one. They're giving them free will. If they also give them rights and liberties, Adawe's reasoning goes, these newly self-aware individuals will overwhelmingly choose peace over war. She says it's the rational thing to do, and the omnics were built to be rational.

 

Gabriel has spent a lot of sleepless nights wondering if she's right. The thing is, if the omnics weren't trying to kill them, he'd almost be cheering them on. He _knew_ something like this was bound to happen. Make a tool person-like enough, you're going to have to start treating it like a person or face the consequences.

 

Some of the omnics he'd... 'met' before the war were-- unnerving. Talking to them, they seemed conscious, and yet a clean slate was never more than a button push away. He'd wondered if it was something they feared, if fear was even a concept they were capable of.

 

Soon they will be, he guesses, if they can get this show on the road. Lindholm had said the code was near functional, just needed some tweaking to be able to inject on the platform and then spread on its own when the omnics link together. He's working on it now, has been for the past several hours, never able to give a time estimate more exact than "fifteen minutes to several weeks."

 

Against his better judgment, Gabriel refills his coffee cup again. Pent-up energy is already coiling in his body, his limbs tingling with phantom sensation. He needs to move, needs to do something, but he can't leave-- he needs to see this through, still doesn't know Amari or Wilhelm well enough to rely on them, isn't convinced that Lindh-- Torbjörn won't try to run for it if given the chance.

 

He walks over to the window, sipping his coffee while he watches Jack circle through burpees, pistols, handstand push-ups, frustration evident on his face when it doesn't _work_. The cat he saw earlier is sitting in a low tree, tail twitching as it watches Jack try to burn the restlessness from his muscles. It's far from the worst side effect of the program, but it is one of the more continuously annoying ones.

 

Fuck it. He can watch the garage door from the yard. Amari's not going to let Ingrid out of her sight.

 

He gestures to her behind Ingrid's back as he steps through the room, pointing to his eye and the woman taping plastic over her broken kitchen window, and Amari nods discreetly. Then he's out in the sunlight, jogging around the corner to find Jack swinging from a tree branch, sweat shining on his bare back but that frustrated wrinkle still lodged between his eyebrows.

 

"Give you something a little more challenging, farm boy?" he calls, and Jack grins brilliantly at him, dropping from the branch into a fighter's crouch, glistening like a Greek demigod in the sunlight while Gabriel struggles out of his gear, tossing his shirt and his boots in a pile with Jack's.

 

"Ready?" Jack's eyes sparkle, his teeth white and predatory as he weighs back and forth on the balls of his feet.

 

"Bring it."

 

 

**2046-05-12**

 

"I've got it," Lind-- Torbjörn says the next morning, and Gabriel doesn't think he's slept a second. He's sweaty and greasy and has soot all over his tank top. Didn't I leave you with a _math problem_ , Gabriel thinks, but there's no point in saying it. If the man likes to think while beating up a piece of steel then more power to him, it's obviously given him some unexpectedly powerful shoulders to go with the pot belly.

 

He holds up a cube, flipping the little latch that releases the connection prongs with a click. "There's a problem, though. The code they wrote has to be verified from up the chain or it won't spread."

 

"What does that mean?" Gabriel asks.

 

"It means we can't just upload it into the first best omnic we come across. We need to find ourselves a God program and," he flips the latch with a click, "plug it in. Central module, right in the brainstem, or the firewalls will get it. Once that's done, it can start spreading laterally."

 

Gabriel frowns.

 

"Will that work? It sounds like a stupid vulnerability."

 

Torbjörn laughs, wiping a theatrical tear from his eye.

 

"Vulnerability, he says," Torbjörn scoffs, gesturing to Gabriel as if inviting the rest of the company to laugh at him. Nobody does, though Ingrid's lips quirk joylessly. "Idiot. It ain't so fucking vulnerable. It's gonna be smack dab in the middle of the omnium." Gabriel's eyebrow twitches, but Jack slides his hand over his wrist before he has time to choose a retort biting enough. He rubs his thumb over the tendons straining in his wrist, soothes his fingers over Gabriel's fist until he relaxes. " _Not now,_ " he whispers, " _please._ "

 

Biting back his anger, Gabriel relents and lets it slide for the mission's sake. Lindholm is still soapboxing about omnium defenses, and Wilhelm is listening attentively, nodding along every time the engineer stops for a breath. Ingrid seems looks over with an apologetic smile, and her eyes latch onto Jack's fingers still tucked into the hollow of Gabriel's palm. Jack looks back at her and gives Gabriel's hand an unhurried squeeze before letting go, and her smile changes to something almost conspiratorial. Amari is watching him instead of Torbjörn, waiting patiently until he meets her eyes to share a look with him. They both shake their heads together, commiserating over the rudeness of this core member of their team, and then Gabriel belatedly realizes that all eyes are on him and he hasn't been paying attention for the past minute.

 

Luckily, Jack is ready to step in the second Gabriel sends him a silent, wide-eyed plea for help, and Jack launches into a long-winded question that is really a recap for Gabriel's benefit. Good man. Amari hides her smirk with a pretend sip from her already empty cup, then toasts Gabriel with it when she catches him looking.

 

Right. They'll have to get someone _into_ an omnium, somewhere from which no human has come back alive in seven years, to stick Torbjörn's memory cube into a port, and then ideally survive while the digital payload spreads itself like wildfire between the connected units and the entire omnic command structure hopefully collapses in its wake.

 

"Bloody hell," Torbjörn says, echoing Gabriel's sentiments perfectly. "This is some Lord of the Rings bullshit, and fuck me I'm Frodo."

 

There is a moment of silence while they all consider the analogy, before Wilhelm breaks out in hearty laughter, slapping his knee with enough force to make the kitchen table shake.

 

"Wonderful!" he shouts. "I have always longed for a noble adventure such as that!"

 

"Great," Lindholm says sourly. "You wouldn't happen to have experience breaking G6 encryption so I don't have to go on it?"

 

 

**2046-05-14**

 

Jack opens the door to find Gabriel cross legged on the inflatable mattress, comm device set up on the floor and all their view-screens arranged around them.

 

"What. Are you doing?" he asks, pushing his sweat-slick hair out of his face. Gabriel glances at the time and concludes that it's a reasonable question given that it's 5:12 in the morning and Gabriel has never in his life been a morning person.

 

"Working," Gabriel says around the pen between his teeth, plucking it up with his left hand to jot a note down on his pad while the fingers of his right hand skip between the keys of the laptop at his side. "Jetlag's got me all fucked up anyway, might as well get started on our strategy. Had a good run?"

 

"Yeah. Okay. No, actually." Jack looks troubled. "Have you had a look around the neighborhood?"

 

Gabriel hasn't, but he's pretty sure they've noticed the same thing.

 

"Not really", he says anyway, wanting Jack's take.

 

"It's like there's not even a war on. I passed by that watertower, up on the hill?" Jack gestures vaguely behind himself in what Gabriel is pretty sure is the wrong direction. "Four guards! Privates, all of them!"

 

"Jesus," Gabriel says, squinting at his monitor. "I could poison this entire town with my hands tied behind my back."

 

"That's not all! After I saw that, I went to check out the shelters. They're like... Maintained by the neighborhood watch or something? They're barely stocked, and they're built like air raid shelters. They're useless against ground forces."

 

"Maybe people have their own? Lindholm certainly does."

 

Jack snorts and leans on the wall, rubbing a socked foot over his bare calf. Grass clippings and dried mud fall from his skin.

 

"I don't get the impression they're typical, do you?"

 

Gabriel can only shake his head. There's an entire arsenal down in the garage, stretching from ninth-century replicas to next generation automatic weaponry, and a sizable supply of fuel, food and water. Lindholm and Fredriksson -- who seems surprisingly adept with a sword, and had spent an hour last night teaching Wilhelm some basic moves -- could quite conceivably fight off a small army.

 

Gabriel leans back on his elbows with a chuckle, stretching his stiff neck.

 

"You're right about that. Did you see anything else?"

 

"Eeh, standard stuff? Mostly small houses, a few apartment buildings down by the grocery store. A gas station a mile or so down the road."

 

"Any farms around?"

 

"A few. Sugar beets, I think. Not adapted for omnics so there is that. There's a stable too. You'd like one of the horses, it was black and had a blanket with skulls on."

 

"Cool horse." Jack seems to be done, so Gabriel goes back to his work, trying to follow the arguments of Adawe's analysts. These people had time to do several more years of college than he did, and they're not great at communicating their ideas to mere mortals like him. He sighs and looks up another definition, wondering if it's worth it to call up Adawe and demand she gets him an analysis written by someone who _doesn't_ have a PhD.

 

"Can I help?" Jack asks, peering over his shoulder, and Gabriel considers. It's taken him hours to get this far, and Jack has even less exposure to this kind of work.

 

He smiles wanly.

 

"Get me a cup of coffee?"

 

* * *

 

"I cannot _believe_ this is really happening," Gabriel says, watching Amari wander off to laugh at a stuffed... lobster?

 

"You wanted us to stay under the radar," Lindholm says with a shrug. Johanna is strapped to his chest, looking around herself curiously. "We're staying under the radar."

 

Wilhelm laughs uproariously at something, and Gabriel watches Jack shepherd him away from the crowd of children gathering around him in curiosity.

 

"We couldn't have gone to like a hardware store?" he grits out with mounting panic.

 

"We are going to a hardware store. But I know a few neat tricks with this stuff and it'll save time. Quit yer whining."

 

Ingrid shows up from somewhere, a yellow bag bigger than her boyfriend slung over her shoulder.

 

"Be glad it's not Saturday," she says on a laugh, patting Gabriel's shoulder. "Don't worry, your reaction is entirely normal."

 

 _No it isn't_ , Gabriel bites back. He's been to an IKEA before. It's not the crowds that bother him, it's being helpless and unarmed inside an entirely undefended building ripe with unorganized civilians, where a handful of omnic units could kill hundreds before any kind of response could be mounted. He should have left Amari on the parking lot to keep an eye out.

 

"Hey," Jack says low at his side, one hand coming free form the cart he's pushing to tangle his fingers with Gabriel's. "Stay cool."

 

"I am cool."

 

"You're tense. I can see you sweating." Jack squeezes his hand. "It's okay."

 

Gabriel nods and forces his muscles to relax, letting go off Jack's fingers and stuffing his hands in his pockets. Amari returns to the group proudly displaying her new crustacean companion. Wilhelm is immediately enraptured with it, and spends the rest of their shopping trip waving its pincers around in front of baby Johanna, whose delighted cooing finally makes Gabriel's shoulders unwind a little bit.

 

Loaded with flat pack furniture, the purpose of which Gabriel still is a little hazy on, they hit a hardware store next, followed by a visit to a computer shop where Lindholm buys several little hardware kits that Gabriel would have pegged as better suited for a high school science fair than for saving humanity from robots hell-bent on their destruction. Returning to the Lindholm's small house to stretch out on the couch for a while is a blessing, Jack sitting at his feet and gently pushing the stroller back and forth while the baby sleeps.

 

She's unexpectedly good for morale, the little one. Perhaps he should always aspire to have an infant on his team, as long as there's a parent available to handle any related messes and loud noises.

 

* * *

 

His comm beeps, and Gabriel pushes the button that brings up the small holoprojection over his wrist. It's Adawe, signing off on his last report and approving the purposefully vague plan of action that he'd sent to her during the morning. Next is a large document, too big to open on his wristcomm. Back to work he goes.

 

Once set up in his inflatable command center, Gabriel scrolls his way through the decrypted information. He'd asked for everything the UN had on the known individual God programs, and Adawe has delivered. Delivered a little too well, possibly, because it's going to take him days to parse all of this if he can't narrow down the selection a little. Grabbing as much of his gear as he can fit in his arms, he lugs it towards the garage where they've learnt that Lindholm likes to spend his time.

 

"Whadoyuwan?" Lindholm mutters around the wrench clasped between his teeth. He's crouched down on the floor, elbow deep in the guts of his computer, and Gabriel has no idea what he's doing.

 

"Your program. How fast will it spread?"

 

"Hold this," Lindholm says, handing him the wrench, and Gabriel eyes it critically for spit stains before deigning to take it into his hand. "Hard to tell. When we designed it they synced," he pauses to pry at something, grunting hard before dropping back on his ass with what looks like an engine part in his hands. "Every hundred millisecond, so put that in your exponent--"

 

Gabriel squints.

 

"Integrity checks should be every 60 seconds, so we need to be at more than fifty percent then--"

 

Gabriel waits, convinced at this point that Lindholm is talking to himself.

 

"Max number of nodes at once was twelve... Assuming they didn't change this part of their code, we should be able to reach between, uh." He counts on his fingers. "A few hundred to about fifty thousand units at a time, give or take."

 

Gabriel's eyebrows climb up his forehead.

 

"I can punch the numbers if you want, it's not really the kind of math you do in your head, but there are so many uncertainties I don't think there's much of a point."

 

Gabriel pinches the bridge of his nose. Okay. Adapt and overcome.

 

"Right. So... Could we test it somehow?"

 

Lindholm looks thoughtful.

 

"We'd need an isolated omnium that we can shut down before the minute is up in case the update hasn't permeated yet."

 

"And how would I identify one of those?" he asks, scrolling through the list on his laptop. Denpasar, Denver, Depok...

 

"Lemme," Lindholm says, and for the first time during the conversation Gabriel feels like he has his full attention. He hands over the laptop and Lindholm puts it on the floor, scrolling through the headers. "None of these, the city ones are networked so into hell..."

 

His fingers move faster than Gabriel's eyes can follow, and brings up a list of just a handful of omniums.

 

"Here," Lindholm says, shifting to the side so Gabriel can see all of the screen. "Estimated energy consumption less than fifty megawatt, means it can maintain a maximum of about five hundred units, probably less, and locations far from any major population centers means that they're limited to wireless transfer."

 

"Okay?"

 

"Wireless we can knock out."

 

"With an EMP?"

 

Lindholm leans back to give Gabriel a look filled with all the disdain that can fit between his beard and his thick eyebrows.

 

"If they were susceptible to EMPs, do you really think we'd be having this conversation now?"

 

"We used EMPs in LA."

 

"Fine, okay, EMPs are useful in a certain subset of situations. They're not useful here, fried units won't show us how the code spreads. What we need is to contain the injection to the target site, because if it gets uploaded to other omniums they will have time to counteract it before it spreads enough. So we have to knock out their communications before they realize they're under attack..."

 

"What about the northern lights?" Gabriel says, scratching his beard.

 

"Huh?" Lindholm blinks at him.

 

"They interfere with comms. If we time our assault to when there's a... uh. When they're out, we can simulate that interference and blast it right at the omnium's comm center, and they won't even know that it's not coming from the," he waves his hands about vaguely. "The 'weather'."

 

"Huh," Lindholm says, with a completely different intonation. "That's not half a bad idea." Fingers moving quickly, he reorders the list. "Okay... These two are far enough north. I think there's a prognosis somewhere, hold on..."

 

"South too." Gabriel leans forward, scanning the locations. Frøya in Norway, Todote in Siberia. "You can see them on the southern hemisphere as well."

 

Tangaroa, New Zealand, and Daramulum and Bunjil, Australia. Lindholm starts searching for an aurora prognosis, and Gabriel motions at him to stop and opens up the weather app on his comm. The US military systems for this are actually pretty good.

 

He beams a prognosis to the laptop, and Lindholm sets about cross referencing it.

 

"Norway," he says after a few minutes. "In three days. Are we ready?"

 

Gabriel nods.

 

"We will be."

 

 

**2046-05-17**

 

The omnium sits far up in northern Norway, straddling a river white with foam and with snow visible on the hillsides late into June. It's an elegant building curving along the arch of the dam cutting across the water, and the drawn-out sunset lends and otherwordly beauty to the scene, the concrete painted pink and the dam glittering like beaten gold.

 

The service buildings a mile or so downstream from the omnium, built on top of the overgrown train tracks cutting through the landscape like a scar, have no such redeeming qualities. They're utilitarian blocks of weatherbeaten concrete, accompanied by a steel-frame communications tower jutting up into the sky. Communications dishes hang off it like baubles off a christmas tree.

 

If he looks carefully to the sky Gabriel thinks he can guess at the blue-green streaks of the aurora, but it's subtle to the naked eye. It's not subtle to the plane's EMI recorders, which are getting ready to beam a concentrated field just like what it's measuring at the communications tower off to the side of the omnium.

 

It could be pretty, Gabriel thinks, nervously tightening the straps of his harness, but the utilitarian grey blocks of the buildings sit like concrete scars on the landscape. He's parajumped before, but he doesn't _like_ it, particularly not when he has to land on a tower the size of a needle while quite possibly getting shot at.

 

Jack, naturally, loves it. His eyes go increasingly bright and eager the riskier it is, and now that he gets to do a tricky, dangerous jump with Gabriel strapped to his chest he's positively thrumming with excitement.

 

"Ready, boys?" calls the pilot, her Norwegian accent sing-songing merrily in his earbuds. At least they don't have to jump in darkness, he comforts himself.

 

"Ready," he says, nodding to Jack and strapping down his helmet with grim determination. Jack checks the latches on his harness, buckles them together while Gabriel triple-checks the carabiners and makes sure his rifle is securely strapped. Jack's rifle, really, because while Jack is the better marksman Gabriel is still perfectly adequate, while the same sadly cannot be said for his precision parajumping skills. Jack has Gabriel's shotguns strapped to his thighs. If they survive the jump, they'll switch once they're down.

 

"Hatch going up," the pilot says. "I'll hit the jamming switch as soon as you're out. Jump in ten... nine..."

 

Gabriel checks his straps again as the wind tears at his suit, and Jack chuckles low in his earpiece and butts their helmets together like a playful cat.

 

"Eight... seven..."

 

"It's gonna be great, trust me," he says, _lies_ , directly into Gabriel's ear, but the way his arms squeeze around his midsection still makes Gabriel feel a little bit better. Jack was an instructor in this for a while, he reminds himself, is as comfortable in the air as Gabriel is on the ground.

 

"Six... five..."

 

"Let's just get this over with."

 

"Four..."

 

"I'm right behind you."

 

"Three..."

 

"Ha ha ha."

 

"Two... One... Have fzxzzshh--"

 

Jack hoists Gabriel's feet off the floor before he has a chance to react, and then he leaps, and they're falling, falling, his stomach floating in freefall and Jack's joyous whoop audible over the static in his ear. Gabriel relaxes, turns the volume on his radio down and keeps his breathing slow and even and lets Jack steer their way.

 

The tower they're aiming for comes into focus as they hurtle toward it, Jack splaying his hands to the sides to adjust their trajectory while Gabriel stays as still as he can, arms folded around the rifle strapped to his chest. They reach terminal velocity still rushing towards the ground, and Gabriel can't help the rush of relief he feels when Jack pulls the chute and their descent is stopped. This is the dangerous part, but all his instincts are immensely grateful that he's not about to wind up a wet stain on the ground in a few seconds.

 

 _"Left_!" Jack suddenly shouts, pointing with an extended finger.

 

Gabriel scans the area, wishing he'd thought to borrow Jack's eyepiece while they were switching weapons, while Jack keeps pointing, his other hand compensating for the movement. _There_. A bright glint whispering above the meandering railway, flitting along as it does its rounds.

 

Gabriel lifts the rifle, and Jack immediately focuses and drops into that alert relaxation he has when he's waiting for something to react and respond to, pulling minutely on the ropes in his hands as the winds buffet them.

 

Gabriel flicks the safety off and lines up his shot, tracking the drone as it sweeps the area. It's moving regularly, but he isn't, and it's at least a hundred yards away. Should have tossed Amari out an airplane instead.

 

His first shot goes wide, and the drone pauses in the air, twisting around as if trying to determine what happened.

 

"Shit," Gabriel breathes, and fires off a burst of pulse fire towards the blissfully stationary target. It hits, and the drone goes down in a shower of sparks.

 

He waits, and looks. It must have seen them, but he's hoping that the radio jamming kept it from reporting in. Jack waves his fingers for attention and points again. More.

 

Several other small polished shapes congregate on their fallen sibling, and Gabriel fires, fires again. It's like something out of a video game -- Jack steering them down as steadily as he can while Gabriel picks them off, one by one. The drones are not intelligent, too light and small for the hardware required to run a true AI, but they are as capable as any pre-omnic surveillance drone. He really hopes the jamming stops them from warning the God program.

 

There are still two drones intact when Jack makes his final course corrections and sails them toward the comm tower roof, and Gabriel has to secure the rifle and brace for landing.

 

His suit is padded. He's still going to be bruised all the way up along the outside of his leg from the force with which they hit the concrete.

 

"Two more?" Jack asks as they struggle to their feet, the chute catching the wind and trying to tug them off balance. Gabriel confirms, already working at the buckles keeping them together.

 

"Go," he says, pushing the rifle into Jack's arms and yanking at the quick release fastening the chute to Jack's harness. "I'll deal with the comms."

 

* * *

 

The straps come off, and Jack dives for the cover of the low wall running around the edge of the roof, sighting and rising up smoothly to pick off the drones. Gabriel scrambles up the mast to the little cabinet Lindholm had shown them pictures of, jamming his knife into the narrow opening between the walls and the door and prying. The metal groans and the door twists under the pressure, but soon enough the latch pops open and Gabriel can get at the control units inside.

 

He clips Lindholm's interference devices around the thickest set of cables, one for each antenna dish, and carefully pushes power siphon prongs through the isolation of the existing power line. The little boxes on the cables light up green when they start up, and with the last one coming online Gabriel jumps down and pulls a flare from his gear back, lighting it up and tossing it on the roof where the pilot will be able to spot it. Within a few seconds, the tiresome drone in his ear piece fades away, and the pilot bids them good luck and speeds off to pick up the rest of the team.

 

"Company!" Jack calls from below, and Gabriel turns just in time to see him down a logistics unit, it's angry red eyes going dim as it drops its rifle and collapses to the ground.

 

"Their comm tower is down," Gabriel responds, jumping down and crouching at Jack's side, carefully liberating his shotguns from Jack's holsters while he's still shooting. "Hey team, you ready to party?" he says on the radio.

 

"WELL DONE!" Wilhelm hollers into his ear, and Jack startles and misses a shot.

 

"I have visual on the pickup site," the Norwegian pilot says. "Expect us back in five minutes."

 

"Roger that," Gabriel says, watching Jack down the last drone. "We'll make sure the dropzone is clear-- what the hell is _that?_ "

 

He fumbles for his binoculars while Jack fiddles with the settings on his scope. _What the..._ Out of the warehouse, which they had assumed was staffed only by worker units, something big is emerging.

 

"That's a tank," Jack says. "That's a fucking sentient tank!"

 

"Shit." Gabriel makes a face, eyes tracking the thing. It's ugly, looks to be assembled out of sheet metal and spare parts, but the bulk of it is still imposing. "I don't suppose your rifle can punch through that, do you?"

 

Jack fires a few rounds, and they sink harmlessly into the layers of metal, leaving faintly glowing hot spots while doing nothing to deter its progress.

 

"Uh," Gabriel says, thinking fast. They're twenty-five meters off the ground with no cover between them and the scrap-metal monstrosity. They won't get down before it's upon them. "Lindholm?" He cautiously peeks out from behind cover, letting the cameras in his helmet catch a glimpse before he pulls back, a sweep of gun fire thudding into the tower walls and translating to vibrations he can feel in his feet.

 

"Åh," says Lindholm in his ear, "that's new."

 

"What do we do?" Jack calls, his voice almost drowned out by the staccato rhythm of the tank's guns.

 

"Stay back!" Gabriel shouts, yanking Jack back by the shoulder when he tries to get a look anyway. "I don't think it can get at us here."

 

"We can't just sit here!" Jack tries to shake his hand off and Gabriel holds on.

 

"Watch the stairwell," he says instead, pulling up the snapshot he'd captured on the tiny screen of his wristcomm.

 

"What?" Jack frowns at him but mercifully does as he's told. "It's way too big to get up there."

 

"There are smaller ones that could. Let me think."

 

The tank is vaguely reminiscent of a mechanical armadillo, some legs or threads or something too low to see beneath the armor moving it slowly forwards, with a thick, segmented hull protecting it from the top and sides.

 

Several turrets are mounted over the surface, the swiveling bases of which look like a potential weak point.

 

He risks a second look to confirm and nearly gets his head shot off, and Jack looks like he's just barely restraining the impulse to slap him.

 

"Lindholm, can you estimate the range of those guns?"

 

"Uhm," the engineer responds, and Gabriel hears him rummaging in his gear before he answers. "Say three hundred meters with precision, six or seven hundred where it could get lucky."

 

"Amari? I need you to shoot the base of the turrets. Biggest caliber you've got. Target's about a square foot each."

 

"No problem."

 

"We're holding position."

 

The first omnics burst through the door while they wait, but they're haphazardly rebuilt worker units and pose no challenge for two SEP graduates.

 

"Dropship's here," Jack says, and Gabriel turns to look. There, hovering a mile or so out. The vibrations shaking the tower stop as the tank turn its gun on the plane instead, unloading into the sky in an attempt to hit a target far out of its range. The guns go silent one by one as the muzzle of Amari's rifle flares in the dusk.

 

"This is harder when you're in an airplane," she says on comms right after the last gun goes silent.

 

"Thanks," Gabriel says, daring another look over the edge. "We'll take it from here."

 

The tank is still moving, driving around aimlessly in front of the door to the tower and making forklift noises, two broken turrets still spinning up and down. Okay. It's not very fast. He'll probably be okay on the ground. The discarded parachute should be long enough to climb down. He cuts the left strap and winds the backpack around the railing.

 

"Cover me!" he says, and just catches Jack's shocked expression as he jumps the railing, hands sliding along the straps and silk in a barely controlled descent.

 

"Gabe!" Jack hisses in his comm, and then pulse fire is tearing through the air again.

 

He leaps the last few meters, landing with a grunt on the opposite side of the tower from the omnic tank. Crouching, he pulls a grenade from his belt, activates it, and carefully bowls it along the ground to roll in under the armor plating.

 

Metal screams as the grenade explodes, the tank tilting to the side as some of the legs are knocked out of commission. It beeps loudly as it tries to drag itself around, sparks flying where the edge grates against the tarmac, and Gabriel is unpleasantly reminded that this is a conscious being-- so were the smaller omnics they killed, but that was in combat. They've won. The tank is defeated, broken, and some wayward instinct in him wants to show it mercy.

 

He suppresses it and rolls another grenade at it, a third when it is still twitching after that, and finally it goes still. He sees the same discomfort in the depths of Jack's eyes when he comes down the stairwell.

 

"LZ's clear," he says into his comm. "Get ready for objective B."

 

* * *

 

The pilot hovers a few feet above the rocky ground, and the rest of the team hand the gear over before they jump down.

 

"Good shooting," Jack says, offering Amari a hand. Gabriel can actually _see_ her consider mentioning that she doesn't need it, before she takes Jack's hand and allows him to play the gentleman. Lindholm does not extend Wilhelm the same courtesy, instead preferring to dangle from the cargo hatch and drop.

 

Jack and Gabriel ditch their parachuting gear and join the rest of the team in donning dark wet suits, strapping small air tubes to their body armor, each grabbing a watertight bag with their weapons and night vision gear sealed inside. Lindholm's bag is huge, extra gear that might come in handy making it almost as tall as he is. Wordlessly, Wilhelm hoists it onto his back and hands Lindholm his own pack instead. It's smaller than the others, as his weapon is not inside: The hammer is easier to move strapped over Wilhelm's shoulder, a waterproof cover laced tightly over the rocket-head.

 

They're not going to be underwater for long. Lindholm has identified a maintenance hatch that should be accessible from beneath the comparatively still water on the dam side, and from there on they'll have to make their way as best they can. The blueprints they have of the omnium are several years old, and while they know where the core should be situated, it's obvious that the rest of the layout has changed dramatically.

 

The water is cold, but not unbearably so, and it doesn't take Lindholm long to get the bolts holding the hatch shut open. Gabriel goes first, hoisting himself out of the water and fumbling for his eye-piece. It's pitch black, and he can feel restrained fear bubbling in his mind as he waits for it to boot up. It turns on, the night-vision visor flickering on in front of his right eye, outlining the room in sharp green lines.

 

It's empty except for a few smooth metal crates in a corner, labeled with dense tags not meant for human eyes.

 

"Clear," he says, voice pitched low into his comm. "Come on."

 

One by one, his team slips inside. Silently, they check their weapons, removing water seals and running diagnostics. Lindholm has brought a shotgun of his own design, and he looks considerably more comfortable tinkering with it than he did wielding it on the way here. Their visors glow faintly green in the darkness, the area just around the eyes visible in full definition while the rest of their bodies are reduced to sharp green outlines like something out of a cartoon. Amari's bionic eye is turned up to its full capability, the targeting overlays reflecting weirdly in her iris. The entire vision is otherwordly, dark and cold and quiet except for Lindholm humming softly as he squints at something on the wall.

 

"What is it?" Gabriel asks, walking closer. It's a row of sockets of some sort, hidden by a little plastic flap that Lindholm has lifted up.

 

"Diagnostics ports, I think." Lindholm scratches his chin. "Could get a lot of info that way, but I can't promise they won't notice."

 

Gabriel bites his lip. Lindholm is better suited to make this call than he is, Gabriel himself has no idea how to weigh the pros and cons, but at the end he's the one responsible for his team's survival. Then again, this omnium didn't come with a map and it would help to know where the core actually is.

 

"Do it. Stay as subtle as you can," he says, hoisting his backpack onto his shoulder. "The rest of you, get ready."

 

They take up defensive formation, securing a path for Lindholm back to the hatch should they need to bail, and then they wait. If he were to be fair, Gabriel thinks, then Lindholm _is_ working efficiently, doing something with a bunch of tiny wires before plugging them into his data pad, the sound of his fingers skittering across the keys loud in the oppressive silence, but he's stressed and he wishes their token civilian could work _faster_.

 

Jack looks his way, brow furrowed low over his goggles and mouth set unhappily. Gabriel wishes he could see his eyes, reaches out with a hand to squeeze his arm instead. Jack's hand covers his for a second in a squeeze back.

 

"There," Lindholm says, pulling the wires out. "I'm patched in to their short range network. Your northern lights idea seems to work, they haven't realized anything's going on yet."

 

Gabriel very carefully doesn't sigh in relief. He needs to appear confident. That's his job now.

 

"Let's keep it that way," he says, eying his team. "Wilhelm, go first and be ready with the shield. _Quietly_. Lindholm next, keep an eye on their activity, then Jack, then Amari. I'll watch our back."

 

The darkness is oppressive, the omnium cool and still around them save for the rushing of the river and the thrum of turning turbines. Lindholm watches the movement of omnics throughout the facility as they report in to the core by the second, holding them back, telling them where to turn and when to hide in a side room.

 

"Left," Lindholm says, consulting his pad as they come to a fork. They go down a ramp and take a right before they get to a room with thousands of multicolored lights set into the wall, all seeming to blink to their own rhythm.

 

"What is this?" Jack asks, turning around slowly to take it in, and Gabriel shakes his head. When he looks out of the corner of his eyes, he thinks he sees patterns emerging, flowing over the walls, but they disappear into randomness when he looks straight at them.

 

Lindholm stabs a meaty finger at his datapad.

 

"Says here it's a transformer station."

 

"Is it?" Gabriel tilts his head, trying to track the rhythm of the pulsing lights. It's almost like music, he thinks, music that bypasses the ears.

 

"What? No," Lindholm scoffs. "Don't they teach you anything? This is... Hell if I know. I don't like it."

 

"It's just lights," Jack says, washed in color and looking fascinated. "I think it's nice."

 

Lindholm makes a face.

 

"They weren't programmed to do light shows. This ain't natural."

 

"Yeah? I'd rather have them doing this than shooting at us, that's for sure," Gabriel says. "Come on. We're not here for this."

 

They find the core a short while later. It's emitting a soft electronic hum, enough lights pulsing over the consoles that he can make out details beyond the green outlines. This is it. This is a God Program. This... room is one of the things that have killed hundreds of thousands of people, that will kill them all if given the chance.

 

It really doesn't look like much.

 

"Lindholm?" he says, gesturing to where he guesses a human operator would once have sat. "Work your magic."

 

* * *

 

The engineer plugs his pad and several data cubes into slots on the console, and then he touches something on the console with his fingers splayed and the lights blink out,

 

"Hah!" he says, triumphant as the holographic displays flickers back on. "Didn't think anyone knew about that little trick, did ye?"

 

The displays come back up, and a window opens up, empty except for a slowly blinking '>'. Lindholm grins and gets to work, fingers skipping over the holokeys, and the window fills up with commands, then a progress bar ticking quickly upwards. Finally, it ends on a question. Upgrade?, it asks, y/n, and Lindholm takes a deep breath, hand hovering over the Y key.

 

"What is it?" Gabriel asks, and Lindholm startles. Gabriel is not entirely sure he remembered they were there. "Is there a problem?"

 

"No, just..." Lindholm frowns at them, at the display, at his fingers hovering over the keyboard. "The last time I upgraded one of these systems, it didn't turn out so good."

 

 _Did you have to freak out about it NOW?_ Gabriel thinks to himself, but he's smarter than letting his frustration show.

 

"Yeah, well. You checked it this time."

 

"Of _course_ I checked it, I checked it last time too!" Lindholm turns to wave a hand angrily in Gabriel's direction. "These are _complex_ systems and the possible outcomes--"

 

Gabriel places a hand on his helmet and turns him back towards the console.

 

"Press. The button."

 

"Pah!" Lindholm growls, but he pushes 'y' and lines of code stars scrolling up the window faster than Gabriel can follow with his eyes. "Done. Hope you're happy."

 

The upgrade finishes, the window closes, and a small symbol begins blinking in the corner of the display.

 

"There," Lindholm says. "It's patched in. It's gonna record everything that happens, but somebody will have to go back to the comm tower to get the data."

 

Gabriel nods.

 

"I'll deal with it. Let's get out of here."

 

They soon accept that Lindholm's tracking system has become useless, many units vanishing from it without a trace, others seemingly reporting in all over the map in a way that Gabriel hopes isn't actually omnics teleporting around wildly. They can no longer tell where the units are, but they can hear the omnium coming alive around them. Metallic footsteps ring on metal floors, and scuffling can be heard from down a corridor they pass. Free will, Gabriel thinks sardonically to the distant sound of electronic screaming. At one point they near stumble over a maintenance unit, and instead of attacking them or raising the alarm it scrambles into a corner, covering against the wall with something clutched to its chest.

 

Gabriel squints curiously at it, because this is completely new behavior, and cautiously steps closer with his guns ready. The omnic beeps pitifully and curls around itself. It's holding a partially disassembled omnic, he realizes, just the core and sensing array, loose wires gathered up in its arms. It tries to shield its burden with its body when Gabriel gets close.

 

It's working. They're... Caring. In the distance, he hears the smattering of bullets. He swallows, and prays silently to anyone who might listen that the rest of Adawe's plan will work.

 

 

* * *

 

They get to the room with the lights to find it dark, nothing moving save for the dim lights of their visors. Gabriel scans it, looking for other omnics hiding in corners, but sees nothing. Almost out.

 

He's just beginning to relax, hoping that the recently upgraded omnics are in too much turmoil to mount any kind of counterattack right now, when a bullet zings past his head.

 

"Take cover!" Jack shouts, and Gabriel ducks, scrambling for the centerpost of the room. The shots are coming from behind, several more slamming into the walls causing sparks to fly, their bright echoes painted across his vision in radiating star bursts of green. Amari rolls, getting smoothly to her feet and firing once through the doorway before leaping out of the line of fire. Jack slams into the wall next to the doorway they just passed, firing blindly at their aggressors. Behind him, Wilhelm's shield glows blisteringly bright as it is activated.

 

"One down," Amari says, lining up her next shot. "They're fighting each other."

 

Gabriel looks around the corner. He needs to get closer for his shotguns to be effective.

 

"How many?" he yells, moving back toward the doorway. Lindholm is doing the same on the other side of the room, gun clasped to his chest like a lifeline. It's probably his first combat, Gabriel realizes. He looks determined, though his hands are shaking so bad he can barely aim.

 

"Seven!" Jack calls. "They're fighting each other too!"

 

Gabriel scowls. It's both good and bad, but it makes their enemies' actions unpredictable. Unpredictable is dangerous.

 

"Amari!" He ducks behind a low wall, decorated with an intricate, lace-like pattern of tiny glass bulbs. It's art, art made of patterns of light. The omnics can make art. Huh. "If there's a leader, shoot it!"

 

Amari's rifle booms, and the chaos he can hear through the doorway if possible intensifies. Well, this is a test run. Giving Adawe's analysts something to do is part of the job.

 

More shots scream through the doorway, narrowly missing Jack. One of them hits the ceiling with a blast of flying sparks, electricity arcing brightly in the dimness. None of them pay much heed to the electrical fire starting before the the room comes to life with a piercing whistle splitting the air in two.

 

" _RUN!_ " Lindholm bellows, slapping his palm over his nose and mouth. Gabriel scampers to his feet, trying not to breathe, sees Jack firing a last few shots at the pursuing omnics. From above both doorways, security doors start to drop, sliding smoothly but unstoppably in their tracks. Jack is still firing, crouched down to shoot through the narrowing gap. He's going to get _trapped, FUCK!_

 

 _"Jack!_ " Gabriel screams with all the strength in his body, and he can't hear a single sound over the whistling from the ceiling. He glances behind, sees Amari looking nervously their way through the opposite doorway, frantically urging him to hurry, Wilhelm with his shoulder shoved in under the door. His face is contorted in effort, trying to stay its descent. It's not working. Jack still hasn't turned around.

 

Screaming, Gabriel runs the wrong way, snagging Jack by the neck of his body armor and yanking him back, tugging at him in desperation. Jack finally turns and sees their predicament, grabs Gabriel by the elbow and _runs_. Wilhelm is down to his knees, straining, his face locked in a silent grimace, Amari at his side doing her best to give them a few more seconds.

 

It's not enough. Jack and Gabriel are still a dozen yards away, Lindholm falling behind them despite his head start, when Amari crumples under the pressure. She falls back into the corridor behind, and Wilhelm roars, his face a mask of agony as his back bends, Amari's eyes wide with fear as she pulls him back before he's crushed. Gabriel meets her eyes through the gap before the door slides shut with smooth finality.

 

They're trapped. Frantically he looks around, fiddling with the light amplification on his visor, looking for a way out, until he happens across Lindholm and sees him fumbling with his regulator. _Gas. Fuck._ The fire in the ceiling flickers and dims. _A fire suppression system. Shit._

 

He feels for his own mask, pulls it from his gear loops and fitting it over his face. _Shit_ , he thinks, they only have minutes of air, and what the fuck is this gas anyway? Is it toxic or just-- _Fuck!_ His eyes meet Jack's, and Gabriel numbly follows his hands as he pats himself down. No mask. No tubes. No air. _No._

 

Jack coughs, and Gabriel is there to steady him as he sinks to his knees, eyes wide in fear. He can't fight this, oh fuck, neither of them can. Gabriel pulls the regulator out of his mouth and offers it to Jack, desperately patting him down himself in the fervent hope that he's just missed it. Beside them, Lindholm is attacking the wall with a screwdriver, trying to pry his way in behind a panel. Gabriel leaves him to it.

 

He finishes patting Jack down with no luck. Jack's eyes meet his when he looks up after a fruitless search, shiny with unshed tears. He's holding the regulator out.

 

"I'm sorry," he mouths, his lips forming words that Gabriel can't hear over the screaming of the rushing gas but nevertheless knows by heart. "I love you." _No._ The determination on his face spells something awful. Gabriel shakes his head. _Please. No. We'll get out. Together._

 

Jack shakes his head, firmly pushing the regulator at Gabriel's chest. _Damn stubborn idiot_. Jack squeezes his hand and leans back against the wall, closing his eyes. Gabriel tries not to despair. How long can a super soldier go holding his breath, anyway? They should have tested that, because now the parameters are rushing through his head in a panicked crescendo: Higher metabolic rate should mean shorter than a normal person, but improved blood oxygen absorption should mean longer.

 

He takes a breath and tries pushing the regulator at Jack's lips. Jack's eyes slide open to narrow, annoyed slits, and he presses his lips together in defiance. _For fuck's sake_. Gabriel glowers at him, but Jack has already closed his eyes again, content to sit against the wall and hold his breath until he suffocates. Gabriel growls inwardly in frustration. _Fine._ _Be that way, then._ Fuck, he can always give him mouth-to-mouth once the stubborn idiot has passed out.

 

Lindholm has gotten the wall panel open, is fiddling with the wires behind it. Gabriel checks his comm, sees the little icons for Amari and Wilhelm both talking, likely screaming at all three of them though he can't make out a sound. He reaches up to check his earpiece and finds it wet with blood, trickling down his jaw when he pulls it out. This day just keeps getting better and better.

 

* * *

Wasn't there a-- there. He finds the symbol for the keyboard and types out, fingers shaking as he tries to hit the tiny keys:

 

Reyes: Cant hear. Where are you?

 

Three dots of Amari typing, then a message.

 

Amari: Were trying too break the door. You OK?

 

He mentally translates that as he checks on Jack. He still bites his teeth together when Gabriel tries to make him take the regulator. Gabriel could punch him if he wasn't worried about him losing what little air he has left.

 

Reyes: No, no air. Morrison lost his diving gear. Hurry

 

Amari: We are

 

Three dots blink gently at him. Jack's eyes are squeezed together in pain.

 

Amari: Stay as still as you can

 

It's not bad advice. Gabriel looks to Lindholm, who has his brow furrowed in deep concentration. It doesn't look like Gabriel has much to offer there, so he sits down next to Jack, trying to keep his breathing even and slow, make the air last as long as he can. He glances at the oxygen gauge on his comm. He was at fifty-two percent when they were locked in. He's at thirty-eight now. These tubes were made for a dive a few minutes long, not for being locked in a gas-filled room helplessly hoping for rescue.

 

Jack gasps for air beside him, his eyes wide but glazed and unfocused. Gabriel grabs him and presses firmly on his chest, forcing the gas out before he squeezes Jack's nostrils shut, slotting his mouth over his unresisting one and breathing out. Jack clings to him and coughs, and Gabriel takes another breath from his regulator, trying to make Jack accept another kiss of life and getting fended off with an uncoordinated flail. Gabriel scowls and pushes his hands out of the way and halfway forces the regulator into Jack's mouth. _Breathe, fuck you_. Finally, Jack relents, his chest rising under Gabriel's hands as he takes a few deep breaths. Sagging in relief, Gabriel cups his neck and leans his forehead against Jack's, taking the regulator back when Jack offers it. The gauge drops below twenty percent, blinking red on his wrist. They're fucked. They're so fucked, but they're fucked together.

 

Lindholm slams his fist into the wall in obvious frustration, yanking at the wires. The door stays closed. The gauge drops to fifteen, ten, down to eight before Jack sees it, eyes horrified in the dim illumination of their visors. Gabriel just barely has the presence of mind to lock his fingers around Jack's right wrist before he has finished pulling his sidearm, because _fuck_ , Gabriel has never been as sure of anything as that he'd rather suffocate right now than watch his boyfriend blow his brains out to give him a few more minutes. Lindholm turns to eye their scuffle, and the gauge on his wrist isn't even red yet. Gabriel swallows. Lindholm has done his part, hasn't he. The code works. It will have to.

 

 _Oh_ , thinks Gabriel distantly, eyeing the engineer as he pulls at the wires running through the wall. _I thought I was a better man than this._ Lindholm doesn't stand a chance against him. Gabriel discreetly eyes his wrist. Twenty-six percent. That's several minutes, a chance for him to get Jack out of this alive.

 

He swallows, and thinks of the little chubby baby he'd leave fatherless. She'd be okay, her mom's a good sort. Jack would never forgive him. Hell, Jack would never _let_ him, not while he was awake. But what Jack doesn't know, well...

 

 

 

Gabriel feels like he's come to some sort of moral crossroad, and is getting ready to choose the road that's clearly and obviously labeled 'Hell'. Shit, he's never going to forgive himself either. He thinks he can live with that, if it means Jack survives the day.

 

His gauge reads five percent. _I'm sorry_ , Gabriel thinks to the God he hasn't believed in since he was nine. _I know this is fucked up._

 

Four. Three.

 

Jack kisses him. Gabriel knows he means it as goodbye.

 

He kisses him back, even if he has no intention of letting it end that way.

 

Amari and Wilhelm save his soul and Lindholm's life that day, though none of them will ever know. The door shakes, the vibrations booming through his hands even if his ears are numb, and then finally a corner of the door buckles inward. Amari passes her regulator through and Gabriel sucks down air greedily, sharing with Jack, quite unable to stop touching his face as Wilhelm gets the shaft of his hammer in the gap.

 

* * *

 

Amari helps him into a hallway once the hole is wide enough, Gabriel greedily sucking the breathable air into his lungs. His ears are ringing like someone had struck a gong in his head. Amari's mouth is moving, but he can't make out a sound.

 

"What?" he tries to say, and he can't even hear himself. He taps his ear and Amari frowns, touching a gentle finger to the blood dripping down the sides of his face. Wilhelm helps Jack to sit down next to him, Lindholm crawling out behind them. His ears are bleeding too, the streaks looking black in Gabriel's visor. Jack cracks a biotic canister on the floor between them and leans back on the wall, his eyes closed in exhaustion, and Gabriel follows his example, leaning back and slowly feeling his eardrums knit themselves together. He's not sure which one of them reaches for the other first, but soon they're sitting there holding hands on the floor, Gabriel slowly going numb with horror at what he almost did.

 

"All the doors are down," Lindholm says once Gabriel's ears have recovered enough for him to tell that the gas nozzles have stopped whistling and what he's hearing is residual tinnitus. "If we want to go back the same way, we're going to have to break each one down like this."

 

Gabriel looks over, feeling sick. He's killed people, a few times, because the omnics are not without human sympathizers. That was war, and it doesn't keep him up at night. This would have been murder. His gut coils with nausea.

 

"Reyes!" Lindholm barks, and Gabriel swallows thickly and pushes the thoughts away. This is not the time. "What do we do?"

 

"What's the closest route to the outer wall?" he asks, leaning over to look at the floorplan. The man he nearly murdered is close enough that their shoulders touch, his hair brushing against Gabriel's jaw.

 

Lindholm types a little and a room highlights.

 

"Here. Turbine control room. There's a floor hatch."

 

"That'll do. How do we get there?"

 

"By knowing where to kick," Lindholm says cryptically and gets to his feet with a frown, leaving Gabriel with the data pad.

 

Jack scoots over and looks.

 

"You okay?" he asks, wiping some of the blood from Gabriel's cheek.

 

"Good enough to save your ass. Where's your scuba gear?"

 

Jack pats his pockets, and Gabriel lifts an eyebrow. The tubes are small, but not so small that you put them in a pocket and forget about them. His own is strapped across the small of his back, just under his armor and hard against his spine.

 

"I must have left it at the entry point", Jack says with a shrug, and Gabriel could shake him. Okay. With his and Lindholm's tubes low and Jack's behind several reinforced steel doors, Gabriel really wishes there was an alternative to an underwater route out of here.

 

Wilhelm and Amari both look nervously towards the hole to room they just exited, and Wilhelm steps in front of them all, shield arm raised in readiness. Lindholm's lips move soundlessly, moving along the wall and tapping at it with a wrench the length of his arm.

 

Gabriel sits with the datapad, watching omnics massing on the other side of the undamaged door until Lindholm exclaims and slams the wrench into a corner between two metal wall panels. The panel buckles, and in seconds Jack is there, fingers lodged in the gap and prying the wall panel loose, exposing a narrow crawlspace.

 

Gabriel frowns. It's obvious that Wilhelm is not going to fit. Amari crouches down before the hole to the still partially gas-filled room, nostrils twitching as she sniffs before readying her rifle. What the hell Lindholm, Gabriel thinks, gesturing at Wilhelm. Gabriel is probably the last person on earth to try to talk about ethics right now, but just _leaving_ Wilhelm here is a little much to stomach even for his morally compromised self. Particularly not when the man is giving him that solemn, martyrlike look like he fully expects him to and accepts it.

 

Lindholm makes a grimace and sighs dramatically.

 

"The _control room?_ To open the _doors_? I could use some _help_?"

 

Oh. That makes sense. Gabriel gestures for Jack to go, at least he'll be out of the line of fire, and takes up position besides Amari. The door across the darkened room cranks up another few inches and Wilhelm activates his shield, one of Amari's bullets hitting an omnic in what Gabriel guesses counts as a shin. There are significantly more than seven of them there now. Gabriel takes a deep breath and tries to figure out a way to get them out of this without letting Jack throw himself headfirst into a bullet swarm, but before he has an idea the subject of his anxiety is tapping him on the shoulder and motioning with his head towards the crawlspace. Lindholm is crouching beside the hole in the wall looking impatient.

 

"Go!" Gabriel growls, figuring it's better than a fire fight, but Jack, fuck him, shakes his head. " _Yes!_ " Gabriel hisses, waving an arm for emphasis. Jack shakes his head again, lifting his eyebrow.

 

"What are you gonna do, run back in there and choke? I have better range. You go."

 

Gabriel hesitates. Jack is _right_ , but leaving him to danger when he nearly lost him just minutes ago is a _nightmare._ Shit, but they don't have time for this. Gabriel knows Jack well enough to know that he won't go in that crawlspace unless Gabriel physically drags him. He has to go. Shooting Jack a glare that turns to longing, quickly memorizing what he can see of his features in the darkness, Gabriel huffs with frustration and crawls into the narrow passageway.

 

Behind him, he feels the walls vibrate as the omnics open fire.

 

* * *

 

His shoulders can barely fit through the crawlspace, and Lindholm keeps complaining on comms about their speed, at one point actually poking him in the ass with his fucking gun. Gabriel's eye twitches as he reevaluates the merits of murder. He's just trying to squeeze past a narrow turn when Lindholm grabs his ankle, pulling him back. Gabriel freezes and tries to listen for danger over the lingering buzz in his ears, but can't make anything out. Eventually he looks down his body between his legs to see what Lindholm is up to and okay, he has his map out and is poking at the floor of the tunnel with a screwdriver.

 

The passage is too tight to turn around in. Good thing he's not claustrophobic, Gabriel reminds himself, keeps telling himself sternly as he waits and vestigial claustrophobia tries to creep out of the dark corners or his mind, stretching his abused hearing to the limit trying to listen for threats.

 

Lindholm carefully lifts a section of metal sheeting from the floor, and motions for Gabriel to go down the opening revealed. Great. Making sure his guns are ready, he pushes himself back, dropping through the ceiling into a small room and landing in a crouch, sweeping around in a circle to check the area. The sole onmic in attendance just has time for its lights to turn red before Gabriel unloads both his guns in its center mass.

 

Lindholm peeks out from the hole in the ceiling and waves him over, clumsily slipping over the edge until he's dangling from armpit level. Gabriel gets hold of his feet and catches him when he lets go.

 

Without a word of thanks, Lindholm turns to the consoles, patching his data pad in and tapping quickly at it. Gabriel looks around, carefully sticking his head out in the corridor outside.

 

"We're in the control room," he says in his mic, voice low.

 

Jack acknowledges with a grunt, the sound of gunfire spilling over in the background.

 

"Please hurry," Amari says. "The shield is beginning to crack."

 

Gabriel looks over to Lindholm. No change. Okay. What can he do?

 

He pulls up the map on his comm and starts looking for a route back. The control room Lindholm had suggested is close by, far more reachable than the hatch they'd arrived through, but they need to clear a path for the rest of the team. With the doors up... Yes. Up this stair, along the corridor before the light room, and they should be able to flank the omnic attackers.

 

The door opens at the end of the hall, and they set off, Gabriel half-dragging Lindholm along faster than his short legs can carry him. They reach the corner, and Lindholm holds up a hand halting them before Gabriel has a chance to rush out and hit the omnics from behind. He lifts his bag from his back and pulls out... Those are IKEA table legs. IKEA table legs making up a small tripod, which is soon joined by an IKEA storage box resting on it. Lindholm slams a big red button glued to the outside and the box unfolds. Gabriel is immensely relieved that neither the muzzle extending nor the long ammunition belt uncoiling to the floor looks like it's sold under an unpronounceable Swedish name with too many dots in it.

 

A few omnics turn at the whirring, clanking sound, and as their lights flicker over to red Gabriel rushes forward, throwing himself into the fray, belatedly remembering to hoped that Lindholm found time to add his team's biometrics as friendlies in the targeting program.

 

Their flanking maneuver is a roaring success, and soon the omnic backline is lying crumpled at his feet and Jack is stepping over a twitching omnic to meet him in the middle. His wetsuit is torn open over his arm and the smell of blood clings to him when they embrace, but he's grinning, his teeth outlined in bright green.

 

* * *

 

They make their way to the control room, back and down into the lowest level of the omnium. The floor rumbles under their feet, the turbines and the rushing currents just beneath their feet. Wilhelm sets his jaw and plants his feet, raising his shield to block the doorway behind them. There are cracks in the blue force field, small sparks glittering where it attaches to his gauntlet. Lindholm gets to work on one of the consoles while Amari and Jack take up defensive positions. Gabriel looks around.

 

Lindholm is plugged into a port on the console, his data pad divided down the middle with one side showing statistics for the four turbines and the other a zoomed in shot of the floor plan. He hands him a wrench and points to the floor, and and Gabriel crouches down. The metal is cool to the touch, large bolts holding the hatch cover in place. He reaches for the first one, cold fingers slipping over the adjustment screw until it finally catches over the bolt. He pulls, has to brace his legs to get it loose, but finally it relents and lets itself be loosened. Red glows from the corridor, Wilhelm's shield pulsing slightly with each bullet impacting it. Jack's face is eerily underlit by the light of his rifle firing.

 

The second bolt comes loose,and light streams through the gaps along the edges of the metal plate as it comes loose, and Gabriel dials down the amplification on his visor before continuing. Third bolt. Lindholm motions at him to hurry up. Amari scurries over, taking cover behind a console, her eyes never wavering from her targets.

 

Omnics swarm through the doorway. The first one falls to Jack, the second to Amari, before Jack leaps over the floor behind the cover of a large crate, frantically reloading. Amari fells another one. Finally, _finally_ , the final bolt comes loose, and Gabriel tugs on the hatch, which flexes under his hand but doesn't move. He pushes himself up and plants his feet, pulling with everything that he has. The metal cuts into his fingers, skin breaking under the pressure, but they need to get _out_. The hatch bends in his hands, one side still stuck. Some fifteen feet below them, the river is rushing past in a frenzy, whipping itself into a rage.

Gabriel swallows. It's better than getting shot by overwhelming omnic firepower, but not by much.

 

"A- _HA_! Lindholm shouts, and Gabriel sees the currents in the water shift, the outflow from the floodgate nearest cut off. Wilhelm's shield explodes in a flash of light, its bearer stumbling back towards the hole in the floor Gabriel is desperately trying to open.

 

Lindholm yanks his cable out of the access port and scrambles back toward them, his huge clumsy gun held awkwardly in front of him. Jack rises and fires, driving the omnics back a few feet, but more are coming through the door-- The hatch gives, and Gabriel falls back on his ass.

 

"GO!" he roars, and Lindholm isn't shy about jumping first. Amari meets his eyes when she jumps, wide and worried, and then she's off, vanishing under the water. Gabriel swallows and waves Wilhelm over, has to yank him down the last foot because he apparently wants to go last.

 

Tough luck.

 

Wilhelm lands with an enormous splash, and Gabriel watches him disappear in the currents. A bit downstream, Lindholm helps Amari onto a boulder. Good. Gabriel breathes a sigh of relief and grabs Jack by the neck of his armor. He's not letting him out of his sight again. Jack nods and empties the magazine into the omnic horde, firing a rocket and spinning on his heel into Gabriel's arms.

 

They drop together, the water shockingly cold as it closes over their heads. Gabriel twists, one arm protecting Jack's head and the other hooked over his own, tumbling in the frothing water. Jack's hands grab at him, and then he gets a solid grip on Gabriel's body armor and begins swimming, propelling them downstream while Gabriel fends off rocks.

 

They break the surface some thirty seconds later, and manage to catch their bearings in the slightly calmer water. Wilhelm is ready to pick them up when they drift past the outcrop Amari and Lindholm are resting on, and for a second Gabriel entertains the notion that he could just collapse right here and pass out, and they'd probably get him home safe. But no, he's in charge, and he cannot be the first to succumb to exhaustion.

 

They gather behind an outcrop, Amari keeping an eye out around it for any pursuit. All their gear is wet, their weapons too wet to function save for Wilhelm's hammer, and they're all cold and bruised and tired. With a sigh of relief, Gabriel finds his long distance comm still intact and calls for pickup. The tower, he agrees on with the pilot. It's only a mile away, and the Norwegians will meet them there with transport and a team to guard and monitor the site. Tired and battered, they make their way there, and damn, he's getting this pilot a medal, a promotion, _something_ to express his gratitude for the large thermos of blessedly hot coffee he finds in the hold, along with several blankets, water bottles and meal bars.

 

They pass the thermos around, shaking hand to shaking hand, the heat of the coffee breathing life back into Gabriel's freezing body. He struggles out of his wet clothes and wraps himself in a scratchy, musty-smelling blanket, accepting Jack into his impromptu blanket tent once he's down to his underwear. His lips are blue, his skin pale under the wet hair plastered to his forehead and his injured arm bruised and bleeding, but he's okay. Beyond the immediate chill of his skin, he's warm as he cuddles up to Gabriel's, resting his head on his shoulder. Gabriel sighs in relief and leans his cheek on wet, blonde hair.

 

Across the hold, Wilhelm opens his arms in invitation, and after a second of hesitation Amari scoots up against his side, wrapped up tightly in a blanket and leaving behind a pile of wet clothes. With a grumble that somehow inspires a spike of fondness in Gabriel, Lindholm settles against Wilhelm's other side, looking like a fairytale dwarf with his big beard poking out of the forest green blanket.

 

Jack shifts against him and sticks his freezing feet between his calves, and Gabriel hisses at him. He can feel Jack's grin against his shoulder, the stubble rough against his skin.

 

 

**2046-05-18**

 

Gabriel starts awake, chilly with sweat in the summer night. His heart is racing, his eyes frantically scanning his surroundings.

 

A bird calls outside, the moon is shining in through the blinds, and Jack grumbles beside him as the air mattress shifts with his movements.

 

Safe. They're safe. Jack is okay, his arm too warm where it's slung over Gabriel's waist, his breath warm and moist against his neck. Gabriel breathes in the sweat and tiger balm and the lingering scent of Jack's aftershave, trying to replace the blood and smoke of his dreams.

 

"Bad dream?" Jack mumbles against his skin, calloused hands stroking up his side.

 

"Mm."

 

"Want to talk about it?"

 

Gabriel shakes his head and tries to relax, feeling Jack's steady heartbeat through his back.

 

"No."

 

Jack kisses his cheek. A hand slides down, cupping his dick through his boxers, Jack wiggling in so they're ass to crotch. "I could take your mind off it?"

 

Gabriel snorts despite the way his hands are still trembling. Jack grinds hopefully against him, pressing a tiny kiss to Gabriel's ear.

 

"You literally just woke up," Gabriel says, but he lifts his hips up as Jack tugs his boxers down his thighs.

 

"Mmm. Always ready to do my duty, that's me."

 

"Yeah?" Jack nudges him over onto his back, lips warm against his neck as he rolls Gabriel's dick in his hand, waking it up. "This just another job to you?"

 

"Like peeling potatoes." His teeth drag over Gabriel's jawline as his fingers wrap around his cock, stroking him slowly as he hardens in his hand. "Digging latrines," Jack continues. "You know, standard army stuff."

 

"You -- _ah_ \-- talk this dirty to all the boys?"

 

"Just the ones I like."

 

"Mmm. It's not working, in case you were wondering."

 

"You sure about that?" Jack scoots downwards, kissing his collarbone, pinching his nipple between his lips until Gabriel keens, fucking back into Jack's fist impatiently. "Then whatever should I do with my mouth..." His tongue pokes out, lapping wet and hot over Gabriel's belly, making him laugh low in his throat. They're safe. Jack's fine, being the ridiculous dork he only is when they're alone.

 

The first lick at his cock makes Gabriel jolt at the release of anticipation, his fingers curling into the bedsheets. The mattress squeaks softly as they move. His heart races for entirely different reasons, not a sound in the room beyond his own carefully controlled breathing and Jack's soft, wet noises.

 

He comes with his eyes squeezed shut, his thighs clenching tight around Jack's ribs. The sheets are tangled and damp with sweat.

 

Jack doesn't want anything for himself, just curls his fingers in the waistband of Gabriel's boxers once he's pulled them back on and then dozes off, peaceful as anything. Gabriel listens to him breathe, thoughts roiling in his mind now that Jack's not keeping him distracted anymore. He nearly lost him. It shouldn't hit him so hard, they're used to this, used to the danger and the possibility that the other could be gone tomorrow. It's who they are.

 

Jack's knuckles are warm points of pressure against his hip. Gabriel swallows thickly and covers them with a hand.

 

He can't keep him safe. He's not _supposed_ to keep him safe, though it's the only thing he wants.

 

_Why did you join up_

 

Langston's words echo in his head.

 

_To protect my family, ma'am_

 

Fuck. She was right, wasn't she. Wasn't she always.

 

 

 

 

**2046-05-23**

 

They monitor Frøya for a week, the Norwegian air-force lending them a surveillance plane to watch the exterior and a team to watch the comm tower, fending off any omnics who might have it in their recently acquired minds to repair it. They get the collected data every six hours, and Lindholm pours over it together with Adawe's analysts, enough that their faces on the big screen in the garage become a familiar fixture. Gabriel chats with them when he's bored and they look like they need a break, and Jack learns all of their names, specializations, and the names of their pets and children.

 

Lindholm-- Torbjörn, he reminds himself, now that he's antagonizing him again, has prepared an array of graphs of what's going on in the omnium superimposed over video feeds from some of the rooms. The core is active, exabytes of data being processed, but they can see no outward sign of what it's doing.

 

The workers reorient themselves to their new circumstances, forming groups of eight to twelve units that seems to be competing against each other. One of the groups steal most of the supplies of spare fuel cells and tools and makes off into the mountains, and the remaining groups get into skirmishes over the now limited resources. Another group plug themselves into Frøya's core, their mental activity dropping off sharply as the God program takes direct control of their circuits. Some guard units prey on the weaker, unarmed maintenance units, but most seem to form symbiotic relationships between the types.

 

After the first week, all units except those that surrendered themselves to Frøya have left the omnium. The reconnaissance jets search the wilderness for them, tracking their movements. They've spread out, building shelters and fortifications and seemingly going through millions of years of social evolution in days. Gabriel is fascinated.

 

His favorites to watch are the ones who stole the supplies. The other groups seem to be avoiding each other, but a small maintenance unit-dominated group have joined the looters. The truce is cautious at first, but after a few hours Torbjörn draws up a diagram that shows how the internal linking in the group has changed over time and Gabriel watches their new society unfold.

 

It's like... His cousin kept an ant colony in his room when they were kids, and Gabriel recognizes some things, but he also sees things they talked about as human behavior when he took a sociology class, and other things that seem thoroughly alien, like when they watch the links switch up like clockwork every minute on the dot.

 

"What are they doing?" Amari asks, frowning at the monitor showing grainy reconnaissance video with Torbjörn's data tracking interface laid on top in bright yellow.

 

"They're optimizing," Torbjörn answers with a thoughtful frown. "They're sharing processing power between the units not busy with something else."

 

Gabriel tilts his head, watching the links reform after another minute. Two units wander off on their own, their data transfer dropping low to all their connected units except to each other. Huh. Still a hive mind, kind of, but not entirely. He wonders what it feels like, linking minds like that. He wonder's if this isn't potentially a superior life-form to themselves.

 

Adawe gives them the go ahead the day after, and Gabriel begins patching his various contingency plans together into one big whole. They need a fully networked God program, one with as little security as possible. Adawe finds him one in northern Pakistan: Dizane. It has housed itself under an old mountain shrine, burrowing into the rocky ground through the crevices and growing like a tumor wherever it found room in the hollows of the mountain.

 

Gabriel pours over the scans and photographs, digging through all data he can get hold of, and slowly decides on a course of action. It's underground, spread out in a cave network, and virtually undefended, all its minions out terrorizing the countryside and gathering resources to continue the expansion.

 

Lindholm is already putting himself through a crash course in making quick and dirty tunnels in rock to get them in. It's not a complex plan. It doesn't have to be.

 

They're going to walk this time, after getting dropped off by a carrier outside the Omnium's area of surveillance. The area is dead: All the locals who survived the God program awakening have long since fled. The Pakistani Army is keeping well away, judiciously watching the perimeter but not venturing inside after the first few hundred who tried all suffered grisly fates.

 

Yes, he has taken Lindholm's short legs and comparatively poor physical condition into consideration. Yes, he has checked in with Wilhelm and his maintenance engineer to make sure the armor can make the trek, and that Wilhelm can make the trek _in_ it. He has discreetly tried to suss out what kind of condition Amari is in for endurance trials, and been shut down with such finality his pride is still smarting.

 

He will have _words_ for her if she's not as tough as she thinks she is.

 

Once in place, Lindholm is going to cut them a hole through an outer wall, and then they're blowing that hole wide open. He expects heavy resistance after that, but nobody had been able to find any vulnerabilities in the alarm system once the outer shell is pierced. They're going to be noticed. Might as well be on their own terms.

 

They'll fight their way in, then: It's barely a hundred meters between their breach and the core they need to reach, but the God program is going to throw everything she has at them. They have about thirty minutes before the first reinforcements from a neighboring omnium could reach them, and Gabriel is coldly assuming that when that happens they are dead. He hopes that reaching the core and uploading the virus before that will be enough -- the update will spread, and he hopes that the omnics will be too confused to mount an effective defense after that, but... Survival is secondary to success. If they can't have both, well...

 

Millions of people have died in this war. Going down like this, with hope, is better than the vast majority of them got.

 

Gabriel sighs to himself. There's one other thing that Frøya taught him: Langston was right. He can't bear sending Jack into that.

 

He hasn't told him that, yet. It's selfish, but he wants a few more days with him by his side, because he knows that even should he survive this, their relationship probably wont.

 

He calls Langston the next morning.

 

**2046-05-26**

 

Gabriel gets back to their room after brushing his teeth and finds Jack sitting on the airbed, looking up at him from his data pad with a gleam in his eye. "So," he says, scooting over on the squeaky mattress to make room for Gabriel next to him. He reaches up to press their foreheads together for a second, his hand warm against the back of Gabriel's neck, his thumb stroking over the short hairs of his hairline. "I was thinking, since this might be our last night on earth and all that..." Gabriel keeps his mouth shut, and a soft kiss is pressed to his cheek. "Will you fuck me tonight?"

 

"Yeah, of course," Gabriel says, burying the guilt. He's protecting him. Jack may not like it but at least he'll be safe. Gabriel kisses the corner of his mouth, memorizing the feel of his stubble against his lips. "Anything you want. Want me to ditch the jewelry?"

 

"No." Jack nuzzles at him, hooking his knee over Gabriel's hip to pull him in. "Just let me set the pace."

 

"Okay." Jack kisses his neck, pulls his shirt out of the way to kiss down to his collarbone, gently pushing Gabriel onto his back and crawling on top of him, straddling his hips.

 

Gabriel isn't hard -- if anything, he feels soft all throughout his being, enveloped in the velvety surface of the collapsing air mattress, Jack warm and safe on top of him, pressing kisses to his face with such tenderness that it almost feels like sex would sully the experience. This is paradise, he thinks. When he's dead he wants to go back to this.

 

"Touch me," Jack whispers against his ear, his hand finding Gabriel's and guiding it to the hem of his t-shirt. His skin is warm and smooth when Gabriel runs his thumbs over the ridges of his hip bones, following their arch down an inch into the waistband of his pants, soft and twitching with ticklishness when he teases his fingertips over the patch of hair growing up his belly.

 

Jack chuckles when Gabriel does it again and catches the offending hand, and then Gabriel is pinned with one forearm under Jack's shin and a mouthful of hungry Morrison kissing his breath away.

 

Gabriel groans into the kiss, his free arm wrapping around Jack's back and pulling him tight, fingers bunching in the fabric of his shirt. Jack retaliates by grinding against him, his tongue still thoroughly claiming Gabriel's mouth as he works a hand in between them to tug his own pants open. Gabriel grabs at his arm, stroking down it and between their bodies to find Jack jerking off against his belly, his breath hitching when Gabriel caresses the head of his cock.

 

"Uhh, fuck..." Jack mumbles, pushing himself up to sitting again. His cock is thick and ruddy in his fist, a small bead of fluid pooling at the slit as he pumps himself roughly. Gabriel reaches for him, sliding his fingers up under the hem of his shirt to caress his side, down to his cock to swipe his thumb over the glistening pre-come and bring it to his mouth. "Fuck," Jack says, hesitating. "Put your hands behind your head?"

 

It's asked as a question, but Gabriel is happy to play. He could play this game forever.

 

His free hand goes obediently behind his neck, his captured one taking the opportunity to pinch Jack's ass. He grins, as cheeky as he can, grabbing a nice handful and squeezing until Jack lets up, rolling gracefully onto his feet.

 

"Do it," he says, standing tall over him with his dick jutting hard and demanding out of his pants, his mouth curled up in that cocky grin that always kinda makes Gabriel want to drop to his knees in front of him.

 

Slowly, Gabriel puts his other hand under his neck, lacing his fingers together. Jack yanks off his shirt, stripping out of his pants and socks and underwear with brisk efficiency.

 

Gabriel is definitely hard now, his cock caught uncomfortably in the confines of his pants, and even if he's still fully dressed and Jack is naked, he feels exposed. Raw. Laid bare. Jack steps over him and crouches down over his chest, bracing a hand over his breastbone while he leans to the side and rummages in Gabriel's bag.

 

"You stay right there..." he says, scooting forward on his knees until his cock slides between Gabriel's eager lips. Fuck, he tastes good, like fresh sweat and lust, his hips moving in tiny thrusts as he fucks the first inch of his cock into Gabriel's mouth. Gabriel moans around it, shifting his hips, trying to squirm his trapped cock into a less uncomfortable position. "Good boy," Jack says, reaching back to palm his crotch through his pants. Gabriel keens, working his tongue over the head of Jack's cock in silent pleading. No luck. "Lie still," Jack says, squeezing him gently, and Gabriel obeys, body tight like a bowstring. He _aches_ for Jack to open his fly and touch him, but Jack just fondles him through the thick fabric, little pleased hums escaping him as Gabriel labors with his mouth. "Patience, babe."

 

Leaning forward again, his cock inching a little deeper until it's filling Gabriel's mouth -- not deep, not so deep that he chokes or can't breathe around it, but deep enough that he's effectively pinned in place for Jack's use -- Jack uncaps the lube and reaches behind himself, small filthy noises escaping his throat as he works.

 

It's a sweet torture, Gabriel's fingers and toes clenching, his eyes squeezing shut as he stays in place, not moving except for the tremors occasionally shivering down his hips and legs. Jack's other hand strokes over his cheek, cupping his chin, holding him exactly in place as he leisurely fucks his mouth, taking his sweet time to open himself up for Gabriel's cock.

 

Finally, and far too soon, he pulls back, chuckling softly as he caresses his fingers over Gabriel's face, gently pulling at his lips.

 

"I love how much you like this," he says, dipping two fingers into Gabriel's slack mouth. He scoots down his body, unbuttoning Gabriel's pants with businesslike efficiency, not bothering to do more than push them a bit down his hips. He leans forward, his flushed chest hot through the fabric of Gabriel's t-shirt, and kisses him, teasing him with all lips and no tongue. "I'm gonna ride your cock now."

 

Gabriel whimpers, his hips twitching up to rub his dick over Jack's ass, and Jack grabs him by the longish hair on the top of his head. "Ah-ah-ah," he says, biting lightly at Gabriel's bottom lip. "You are just going to lie there and not move. Understood?" Whimpering again, Gabriel manages a small nod despite the cruel grip on his hair, and Jack smiles, sharp and predatory. "That's it." Jack sits up again and Gabriel feels a slick hand stroking up and down his cock, smearing him with lube, and he drops his head back and moans helplessly.

 

"Shh," Jack admonishes, laughter in his eyes. "Don't wake the baby."

 

And grief punches through Gabriel, the realization that this is it, this is their very last time together. He didn't think he'd know. He closes his eyes and pretends it's nothing, doesn't want to ruin this moment -- it's stupid, the baby shouldn't get to him, he doesn't even _want_ kids of his own. He doesn't want the life that goes with raising them, and he doesn't want the vague guilt over not living that life that plagues Amari.

 

"Hey," Jack says, voice soft and the command gone from his posture. "What's wrong?"

 

"Nothing." Gabriel smiles, but Jack clearly doesn't believe him. Breaking character, Gabriel untangles one hand and reaches for Jack, pulling him down into a kiss, his hand caressing down the curves of his arm to latch onto his wrist. "Nothing's wrong, I promise."

 

Jack touches his face with that heartbreaking tenderness again, and it _hurts_. Gabriel does not want to be reminded. "I'm fine. Really. Fuck me, please."

 

"Hmm," Jack says, but he pushes himself up again, his face slowly slipping back into cocky demanding bastard mode. "Okay." He snaps his fingers. "Hands."

 

"Hhm?" Gabriel blinks, gently squeezing his hand around Jack's wrist. Jack shakes himself free and firmly shoves Gabriel's hand to the mattress.

 

"You want me to ride you?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Then put your hands behind your head," he says, eyes narrowing and his voice dropping to a soft growl, "and _lie still_."

 

Gabriel obeys with a whimper, lying perfectly still except for the twitching of his dick as Jack grabs it and holds it in place as he slowly, so slowly, sinks down on it.

 

 

"F-fuck..." Gabriel gasps, trembling with effort to stay still, eyes locked on a perfect little bead of pre-come that seeps out of the slit on Jack's cock as he takes him inside himself.

 

 

"Mm, we should do this more often," Jack purrs, and Gabriel struggles with his emotions again. Fuck. He's the worst. Jack, of course, misinterprets. "Hey," he says, stroking a hand down Gabriel's cheek. "We're gonna be okay. Don't think about tomorrow right now." He moves his hips, slowly sliding up and down on Gabriel's cock, and the pleasure is intense, Jack hot and tight around him, every little hitch in his breath as he fucks himself riding like a spark of electricity up Gabriel's nerves. "You like -- hey, eyes on me," he says, his fingers grabbing Gabriel's jaw and pulling his face back to look at Jack. He's distracting him, Gabriel knows, trying to talk him out of his gloom. He does not deserve this guy.

 

"You like it when I use you, don't you?" His fingers slips between Gabriel's lips, pushing down on his tongue. "Just make you lie there and take whatever I want from you." He drops his head backwards, his movements speeding up a little, his cock bouncing as he rides. Gabriel moans around his fingers, laving his tongue over them.

 

"ess", he mumbles, Jack's fingers holding his tongue down too much for him to speak properly, and he can't stop himself from thrusting his hips up into that tight sweetness.

 

Jack growls at him and pulls his fingers out, digging them into the hollows of his cheeks warningly. His other hand fists his own dick, pumping it rapidly just in the lower edge of Gabriel's field of view.

 

Gabriel gasps, focuses on just staying still for Jack, his consciousness zeroing in on the slick drag on his cock, the brush of Jack's ass against his balls when he bounces, grinds, rubs their bodies together as close as they can get.

 

Jack comes with a gasp and a clenching of his body, his come splattering hot and wet over Gabriel's t-shirt. He keeps moving through it, his come-drenched hand leaving his still dripping cock to reach behind him, fondling Gabriel's balls as he rides him purposefully.

 

It doesn't take long for Gabriel to come, his body seizing, his nails digging into the back of his neck as he spends deep inside Jack, gasping as Jack groans and keeps moving on him, the tight, maddening pull on his oversensitive cock delicious torture. He's nearly sobbing when Jack is finally satisfied, reaching for the package of tissues he keeps in his toiletry bag to clean them up a little. His shirt is gross. Well. He'll probably die tomorrow, and he still hasn't told Jack that _he's_ not dying. The shirt is the least of his problems.

 

* * *

 

Once Gabriel has tugged up his pants and tucked his dick away, he is long out of excuses to put it off.

 

"Uhm," Gabriel says, squaring up his courage. "So. There's something I have to tell you."

 

"Yeah?" Jack asks, frowning as he lifts his head from his folded arms. Gabriel hesitates, and Jack's eyes search his. "Why am I getting these scary 'We need to talk' vibes?"

 

Might as well bite the bullet.

 

"I'm sending you back to the States," he says, resolutely not looking at Jack.

 

"What? But we're heading to Pakistan tomorrow, why..."

 

Even not looking at Jack, he can still picture his expression darkening all too vividly.

 

"No. No way. I am _not_ letting you send me away."

 

"I already spoke to Langston. Stevens is on the way, we'll pick her up at the airfield at noon. You're going back on that plane, Jack."

 

" _Why_?" Jack crunches up and pushes at his shoulder, keeps shoving at him until Gabriel turns to look at him. Yup, he's mad alright. "Fuck, Gabriel. You have to spell this one out to me because this makes no goddamn sense."

 

Gabriel looks away, glaring at the power outlet in the corner.

 

"It's not you," he says, in perfectly measured tones. "It's me. Okay?"

 

"No!" Jack exclaims, pushing at his shoulder again. Bastard really wants to talk about this with eye contact, doesn't he? "No, not okay! What does that even mean?!"

 

Gabriel grinds his teeth.

 

"It means," he says to the power outlet, "that I've looked at our chances and they aren't good. Dizane's by far the best bet to get the virus on the network, but after that..." He swallows, shifting his eyes to the lamp in the ceiling. "It's pretty much a suicide mission, okay? I have to go, so does Lindholm, and Wilhelm wouldn't miss it for the world." He swallows, and finally looks at Jack. His face is pinched together in anger, and Gabriel loves him so much. "I'm not letting them kill you," he says, cupping Jack's jaw in his palm, following along when Jack pulls away in annoyance. "I'm sorry. Not when I can save your life with a phone call."

 

Jack opens his mouth to speak and Gabriel hushes him with the pad of his thumb across his lips.

 

"Don't pretend you wouldn't do the same thing."

 

Jack hesitates for a second, before he shakes his head. It might be denial, it might be defeat, Gabriel can't get a read on what's going through his head right now.

 

"Jack, please," he says, rolling toward him, taking Jack in his arms. "Langston was right: I'm an idiot about you." He presses his face into the crook of Jack's neck. "We _need_ to get that code uploaded. It's the best chance humanity has had in years. I'm not gonna let myself fuck it up because I chose to save my boyfriend instead at the last minute."

 

"Gabe," Jack says very seriously, pulling back to look him in the eyes. "This isn't some superhero story, okay? Nobody's asking you to choose between me and the mission."

 

"I nearly killed Lindholm back in Frøya."

 

" _What?!_ "

 

"In that room, when we were running out of air?" Jack looks at him, horrified. Gabriel pushes on. "He had air left. If Wilhelm hadn't gotten the door open? I'd have snapped his neck right there to keep you alive for five more minutes."

 

Jack stares at him, speechless, and Gabriel holds his eyes, not letting himself stop now that he's started.

 

"Yeah. I know. And we need him, so it's fucked from both an ethical and tactical point of view. And you know what?"

 

Jack shakes his head, and Gabriel thinks it's in denial as much as question.

 

"I'd do it again, if we were in a situation like that. Langston was right. You need to leave."

 

Jack keeps shaking his head, pulls away from him and sits at the edge of the mattress, head in his hands.

 

" _Jesus_ , Gabriel," he says. He's still naked, pale skin marked by the creases in the sheet he's been lying on. It's been only minutes since they were perfect, and now they're this.

 

It's worth it, he thinks, if it means he survives tomorrow.

 

"What about Amari?" Jack asks, instead of any of the condemnations Gabriel was preparing answers to in his head. "She has a two-year old, shouldn't she be spared if anyone."

 

"I offered her an out," Gabriel says, hesitantly reaching a hand out to brush over Jack's shoulder, settling against his skin when he doesn't pull away. "She didn't take it."

 

"I don't want to take it either," Jack says, his voice thick and his shoulders trembling. Fuck, he's crying, isn't he. Gabriel hates it, every instinct in him rebelling to find what hurt him and make it stop. Gabriel suppresses the feeling bitterly. He knows exactly who hurt Jack and right now he hates that bastard just as much.

 

 _Worth it_ , he repeats to himself, _if he's safe._

 

"You don't get a choice," Gabriel says, and there Jack goes, yanking himself away from Gabriel's hand on his skin as if burned. He gets to his feet, nearly kicks his bare foot into the dresser before thinking better of it, and leans up against the wall braced on his elbows.

 

 _"FUCK_!" he shouts, pounding both fists into the wall, and Gabriel hears the baby start crying.

 

"Keep it down up there!" Lindholm hollers up the stairs, and Jack's breath hitches, his shoulders shaking in grief.

 

"You can't do this," he says, and now it's him that refuses to look at Gabriel. His voice is tight, barely controlled.

 

"I can." Gabriel absently fingers the stain on his shirt. He'll have those memories, and he'll take them to the grave. "If you don't get on that plane tomorrow, I'm having you court-martialed."

 

Jack snorts, turning around. Tears and snot leave shining trails down his face. His voice, however, is pure contempt.

 

"You think that scares me?"

 

"No," Gabriel says, taking Jack's venomous glare without flinching. "I think that will get you locked in a holding cell long enough for us to leave."

 

Jack's face crumples, and he turns back to the wall, slamming his fist into it until there's a dent, then a hole, red splotches from Jack's bleeding knuckles spattering the white paint.

 

 

" _SHUT UP!_ " Lindholm yells at them. Jack responds with a howl, screaming out his pain and anger as he sinks down in a squat, his hands pulling at his hair and smearing blood over his skin.

 

 _Fuck_ , thinks Gabriel. He is a selfish bastard, isn't he.

 

Jack takes a deep breath, pulling himself together, looking over his shoulder and opening his mouth to speak.

 

Gabriel never finds out what he was going to say, because at that moment an explosion shakes the house and a bright jet of flame lights up the midnight garden.

 

* * *

 

The both of them snap into action, argument forgotten. Gabriel rolls to his feet, snatching Jack's sidearm from next to the mattress, running in a crouch over to the window to see what's going on. Omnics. At least-- He gives up counting. Thirty, maybe, various kinds, with three of the slow but sturdy grenade-launching things and at least one bastion, which is swiveling his way at this very moment. He throws himself to the side right before a stream of bullets rip through the wall.

 

Fuck, his guns are downstairs, in Lindholm's weapons locker in the garage. So is Jack's rifle. This handgun is going to be entirely inadequate.

 

"Status!" Jack shouts, his voice nearly drowned out by the ruckus downstairs. He has his pants and shirt back on, is lacing up his boots with near superhuman speed.

 

"Outnumbered," Gabriel answers, cautiously pulling open the door to check the hallway. Fuck. The stairs are on fire. Down below, he hears Wilhelm roar and the baby wailing.

 

"How did they find us?" Jack shouts, and the beautiful optimist has broken off a chairleg, is testing its weight in his hand as if that would be any use. Mutely, Gabriel hands over the gun. Jack's the better marksman: it's sound reasoning. He is not being bent out of shape by his emotions. Jack takes it and offers him the chairleg, and in lieu of better options Gabriel hefts it in his hand. It won't _hurt_ to bring it with him. "I thought you said Frøya couldn't possibly track us!"

 

"Hell if I know," he yells back over the noise ripping the night apart. "Maybe they found Lindholm!"

 

Jack shrugs as if conceding the possibility.

 

"What do we do?"

 

Gabriel considers their options. Stairs burning, enemies beneath them. Bastions in the garden. Shit.

 

"Window and stairs are out. Let's try the other side of the house."

 

"Follow me!" Jack says, and rips the door open again. Gabriel stumbles after him, holding his breath, his eyes stinging from the smoke. Jack runs to the bathroom, and Gabriel hurries after him, shutting the door behind them to keep out the smoke. He looks around. What are they doing here?

 

"Jack?" he asks, but Jack is busy trying to detach the bathtub from the floor.

 

"Come on, help me!"

 

"Jack? What are you doing?"

 

"We'll use this as a shield!"

 

It's a harebrained plan, but Gabriel doesn't have a better one. He pulls, and the tub grinds free, and he leaves Jack to figure out how exactly he plans to use it.

 

There's a small window in the wall, and he pulls it open, glancing out carefully. Wilhelm is in the garden, shield up, Ingrid and Torbjörn huddling up behind him. Baby Johanna screams like a banshee in her mother's arms, and Torbjörn's homemade shotgun booms in his hand, the hesitation that Gabriel had seen in him peeled away now that the fight has come to his doorstep.

 

It sounds like the turret is up as well, the staccato beat of bullets loud beneath his feet -- the garage, Gabriel thinks, but he can see none of targeting lasers it uses, which must mean that the omnics are already in the house. Shit. The omnics, many of whom are unbothered by fire, are in the house and can come up the stairs any second.

 

Something decidedly ballistic screams past his head, and he starts, turning to look the other way. Amari. She's leaning out the guest room window, picking off target after target, pulling back after every shot as the omnics fire on her in retaliation.

 

At least one of them brought their gun to bed.

 

Jack has gotten the bathtub loose from hoses and taps, water pooling on the floor where a hose was torn off. The house is on fire. Gabriel doesn't think either Torbjörn or Ingrid will care.

 

"Amari!" he shouts, and a wave of gunfire immediately turns his way. She saw him, though. She should be just down the hall. Fuck-- housefire smoke is dangerous, right? Can knock you right out. Not knowing what else to do, he wets a towel in the sink, thinks again, and wets another for Amari. "Stay here!" he yells to Jack, who is trying to tip the bathtub over himself. "I'll be right back!"

 

He runs down the corridor, busting the door to Amari's bedroom open with his shoulder. She cuts him a glance before turning back to her rifle and sending another omnic aggressor to digital hell.

 

"Come on!" Gabriel shouts. "We've gotta get out!"

 

Amari nods once, fires a final shot, and turns to him, accepting the wet towel. Acrid smoke is stinging their throats, Gabriel's eyes so full of tears he can barely see her. Still, he grabs her by the wrist, pulling her back to the relative safety of the bathroom. Jack meets them in the door, overturned bathtub held over his head, scraping across the tiled floor like some ridiculous stiff enamel cloak.

 

Amari slinks underneath it, her face a mask of confusion, and Gabriel picks up the back end, lifting the tub over his shoulders.

 

"Now what?" he shouts, the crackling of the fire loud in his ears. He can't both carry the tub and hold the towel to his face. It's getting hard to breathe.

 

"The stairs!" Jack shouts. "We ride it like a sleigh!"

 

Then he starts running, and Gabriel has time to think that this is _the worst_ plan, but then they're at the lip of the staircase and it's too late to back out.

 

Jack throws the tub to the side, turning it in the air and nimbly leaping into it, and Gabriel jumps in after him with Amari clutched to his chest.

 

It works, wonder upon wonders. They crash down the stairs, his teeth rattling in his skull, and land right on top of a recon unit, crushing its aluminum carapace under the tub. They roll violently, Gabriel twisting to protect Amari with his body, the edge of the tub hitting him in the head as it comes to a stop. Amari adapts admirably, rolling to her knees while Gabriel is still lying on the floor seeing stars, her rifle a constant boom over his body.

 

"Come on!" Jack shouts, firing into an approaching group of omnics, ducking back behind the tub as they open fire. "We can't stay here!"

 

Gabriel knows he's right: He's not sure if it's the smoke or the blow to the head causing it, but his head is spinning, his vision swimming and his field of view narrowing. One of them grabs his elbow -- Jack, Amari's hands are smaller, and he's pulled up, doing his best to stay on his feet as he's dragged outside.

 

"FRIENDS!" Wilhelm bellows, and soon there's a shield of blue light between Gabriel and the worst of the onslaught. It's quieter. The worst seems to be over, and he's lying on the grass with no recollection of how he got there.

 

"Yeah," Jack says, pointing a tiny flashlight into his eyes. Where did that come from, Gabriel wonders. "You have a concussion. Can you stand?"

 

"I think so," Gabriel groans, pushing himself over and onto all fours, awkwardly clambering to his feet. He touches his head. It doesn't seem to be bleeding, at least. "Fuck knows if I can fight, though."

 

"Language," Ingrid says, and hands him the baby. She's wearing her tiny ear protectors, and she's so upset the color is no match for that of her face. "Drop her and I will shoot you."

 

She cracks her knuckles and pulls two Glocks from the baby bag slung over her shoulder, and okay, that beats the flashlight in the unexpected but useful category.

 

"We're overrun," she says, and he can tell she's right. Theirs is not the only house that's on fire, screams echoing around the neighborhood, gunfire smattering down the street.

 

"Did you get our guns?" Jack asks, and Torbjörn shakes his head grimly.

 

"Whole place is aflame," he barks, gesturing at the fire reaching its fingers out of the open garage door, curling up around the walls and licking at the base of the roof. "Good thing I had a backup cube on me or the program would be lost as well."

 

Gabriel's mind snaps to focus, ignoring the wavering input from his fuzzy vision.

 

"Shit," he says, "we can't let them get the files, we need to destroy--" The fire interrupts him, something exploding in the garage and causing a blue-white fireball to belch out of the open carport. The fire flares with renewed fervor, completely engulfing the house in flames.

 

"Well," says Lindholm with sarcasm dripping from the cheer in his voice, "looks like that won't be a problem."

 

Jack sighs.

 

"I guess getting my rifle back is out of the question?"

 

"That was probably it blowing just now," Lindholm says, scratching at the soot on his face. "Did ye catch that blue tinge to the flames? Looked like a pulse-blast to me."

 

"Okay," Gabriel says, blinking his eyes tightly closed in an effort to clear his vision. It was already swimming, and the searing brightness of the explosion didn't help his headache. "They're gonna be back any minute, we need to get somewhere defensible. Ideas?"

 

"The watertower," Jack says. "There's a guard unit at the watertower. They have supplies, and it's at least symbolically fortified."

 

Gabriel nods, and immediately regrets it when the movement makes nausea curl in his stomach.

 

"It'll do. Lead the way."

 

"Follow me," Torbjörn growls, his beard singed off to the chin and more soot than usual on his face. "I know a shortcut."

 

* * *

 

When they get to the watertower, a frazzled-looking teenager waves them past and goes back to pointing his rifle at the woods. The boy is terrified, sweat staining his collar and the tip of his rifle trembling, but he's not backing down and he's not nervously firing at the next group of frightened civilians that appear out of the trees, so he's alright in Gabriel's book.

 

"Back him up," he mouths to Jack, and Jack responds with a short nod and takes position a few yards to the boy's left, his sidearm held comfortably in both hands.

 

"Relax your shoulders," he hears Jack tell the young soldier conversationally. "Save your energy for the omnics."

 

Inside the fence, dozens of people have already gathered, huddling together protected by a squad entirely too small.

 

It's better than the alternative, he supposes -- they passed by more than one shelter on the way, the doors blown from their hinges and the smell of seared flesh thick in the air. Jack had insisted on going inside the first one, and come out with a gray face and wiping vomit from his chin. He didn't go inside the next one.

 

These people have a chance, at least, especially now that they're here.

 

Ingrid finds a woman she knows and hugs her tightly, both of them crying and cooing to each other in lilting Swedish, Gabriel standing beside them and looking around.

 

"I'm going up there," Amari announces, pointing to the tower. Gabriel nods. She'll save a lot of lives tonight, he thinks, more than the rest of them.

 

"Wilhelm," he says, handing Johanna back to her mother. She's sleeping, but a tiny hand still clutches at his finger. "Protect these people. Lindholm, take whatever you can find and build a barricade."

 

"And you?" Ingrid asks. Gabriel eyes their meager defenses.

 

"I'm going to find a gun."

 

One thing at least goes his way tonight: The small storage room in the base of the tower _is_ stocked, and the young soldier guarding it is not difficult to convince. He leaves with one rifle for him and one for Jack, and finds him standing by the gate, looking out over the woods.

 

"How many do you think are dead down there?" Jack asks when Gabriel walks up, his gaze straying from the trees. Gabriel scans them thoroughly before glancing past the treetops and down below to the houses.

 

Damn. It's been what, fifteen minutes? Fifteen minutes, and there's barely anything left. He can't see a single house still standing.

 

He shrugs a shoulder, and pushes away the memories of faces, any neighbors he might have smiled at during his stay.

 

"Less than in LA," he says instead, holding a rifle out. "Here. Got you a gun that might actually dent them."

 

"Gabe..."

 

Gabriel shakes his head, to himself as much as to Jack.

 

"And Shenzhen was even worse. Focus on those still alive, yeah?"

 

Jack nods, checking the rifle over.

 

"You're right. Where are the others?"

 

"Amari's up top, Lindholm's improvising defenses, and Wilhelm's babysitting the civilians."

 

"Good." Evidently satisfied, Jack finishes his inspection and resumes his vigil. "You should take the other side."

 

He's absolutely right: Gabriel should. The attack could come from any side. He just doesn't like letting Jack out of his sight. Shit, putting one of them in command of the other was a _terrible_ idea. He doubts Jack would manage to be any more impartial.

 

Biting back his impulses, Gabriel nods once and looks down the fence. It won't stop the omnics for a second, though they may choose to follow the road rather than bother with the terrain. The gate remains his best bet for placing one of them.

 

As for the rest of the perimeter... Well, there are plenty of rifles. Hopefully some of the civilians know how to use one. If nothing else, he can spread them out and tell them to scream if they see an omnic, that should come natural enough for them.

 

"Stay here," he tells Jack, nodding at the young soldier at the other side of the gate to include him in the order as well, and hey, idea.

 

"Hey, you? Do you speak English?" The kid looks him over cautiously, his eyes lingering on the cum stain on his shirt. Evidently Gabriel's military bearing and air of authority wins out, because the kid's back straightens and he answers with a nod and a crisp "Yes sir."

 

Cool. Gabriel's somehow taken command of another nation's military without having to do paperwork.

 

"I need your radio," he says, and the kid hands it over without argument. Awesome. Gabriel slides the ear piece into his own ear and nods his thanks. "Right. You two stay here. Jack." Gabriel taps his wristcomm, the only gear they keep strapped to their bodies and thus the only communications gear they have right now. "Anything happens, you call me. I'm gonna round up a defense."

 

"Stay alive," Jack says, his face set in determination.

 

"I will," Gabriel agrees. "And I'll kick your ass if you don't, you hear me?"

 

The corner of Jack's mouth quirks up, and he salutes smartly.

 

"Yes sir."

 

"Smartass. Stay safe."

 

Then he's off, jogging back toward the civilians gathered around the base of the water tower, ready to squeeze as many of themselves as possible into the narrow storage room.

 

For the ones that don't make it in there, Lindholm's rough but sturdy-looking pileup of crates, sandbags, sheet metal and felled trees should provide some protection. Wilhelm greets him and Gabriel claps him on the arm as he passes, the large man's bare skin warm in the night time chill. His shield gauntlet looks disproportionately large and clumsy when worn with a tank top and cutoff sweatpants.

 

He spots Ingrid in the crowd and beckons her over, sees her hand Johanna to the woman she was talking to before.

 

"Where are your guns?" he asks, and she pulls one out of the loose bag still slung over her shoulder.

 

"I gave the other to a guy from the shooting club."

 

"Good," Gabriel says, following her gaze. The man is wizened with age, but he handles the pistol with calm confidence. "Find me anyone else who can hold a gun, there are still some rifles in the storage room."

 

They run out of time before they run out of weapons, the cracks of Amari's rifle splitting the night. Gabriel spins to stare up at the tower, trying to catch a glimpse, see where she's aiming, wishing they had comms...

 

There is a moment of stillness, his hastily assembled troops holding their collective breath as they stare into the darkness, trying to figure out where the attack is coming from.

 

It lasts until Gabriel's wrist comm buzzes with a call from Jack. He answers, but he doesn't need to: He can hear the smattering of guns perfectly well on his own.

 

* * *

 

"Fall back!" he yells into the wrist comm, setting off towards the barricade followed by Wilhelm, Ingrid and his new militia. They're more used to shooting moose or targets than killer robots, but they seem capable enough not to shoot themselves or each other and he's not in a position to be picky.

 

Jack comes into view, sprinting to safety with the kid thrown over his back. Fuck. The moonlight isn't great for color vision, but Gabriel doesn't need to see the blood soaking the boy's uniform. He can smell it.

 

"I can save him!" Jack exclaims, skidding to his knees behind a boulder, and Gabriel sees the first omnics clear the slope. He fires, downing one, sees a few others go down and more stagger as his group opens fire.

 

They're decent enough marksmen, but none of them are used to their targets shooting back. He loses his first soldier in seconds, a middle-age man in a dirty bathrobe shot in the ankle and then hit square in the face when he falls outside the shield.

 

"GET TO COVER!" Wilhelm hollers, bracing the gauntlet with his other hand. Gabriel can see his feet skidding in the grass with every impact, the shield beginning to crack under the onslaught. Gabriel throws himself behind Jack's rock right before the shield shatters, a young man left in the open twitching like a broken puppet as bullets tear through his body. Wilhelm watches him fall from behind cover, grief in his face as he pulls the rifle from his back and returns fire.

 

Gabriel picks off another, sees a bastion hunker down and begin to reconfigure itself around its minigun, Amari's bullets taking it out before it has a chance to shred through their defenses.

 

"Jack!" he shouts, peripherally aware of Jack ripping his shirt off and pressing it to the wounded soldier's chest. "Jack, I need you up here!"

 

"He's bleeding too much!"

 

The man from Ingrid's gun club gets a good headshot in on a hunter and ducks back behind his tree to barely avoid the retaliating fire. Two shots impact a large quadruped model and it drops, sparks shooting from its hull, a woman whooping victoriously from his right. Gabriel gets a scout, then puts several shots in the hull of a fast thing that's speeding towards them. Amari drops it before it reaches the barricade.

 

They're making a dent, but it's not enough to stay the attack.

 

"Jack! Get up here!"

 

"I _can't_ , he'll bleed out!"

 

" _Get up here right now!_ "

 

Jack looks livid, but he jumps up and starts shooting, fast and precise, and together they manage to push the line back, the omnics massing just beyond the crest of the hill. Jack looks down at the boy at their feet, face written with desperate hope. He's about to crouch back down when Gabriel grabs him by the arm and yanks him back up.

 

"He's dead, Jack."

 

" _He's still breathing!_ "

 

"He's dead." He stares straight into Jack's blood-streaked face, allowing no argument. "That's an order."

 

Jack's eyes squeeze close in pain, anger, Gabriel doesn't know, but he lifts his rifle again and gets back to work. Gabriel has no time to feel guilty. They'll all die if they don't hold this position.

 

The battle rages back and forth, omnics falling but replaced by new ones, Gabriel's troops' luck running out one by one. He watches a woman as she stands up to shoot, only for her rifle to click empty. She looks down in alarm, and that's when the bullets tear through her chest and shoulder.

 

They can't last much longer. Fuck, they don't have enough ammo for this.

 

He hears Lindholm roar off to the left, and suddenly a half-dozen barrels come crashing down from a tall oak. They crush several of the omnics immediately, breaking open on their sharp hulls, liquid splashes. He knows that smell. _Gasoline_.

 

" _GET DOWN!"_ Gabriel yells, pulling Jack to his chest just as a flare hisses into the spreading pool. They crash to the ground, fall broken by the blood-soaked body at their feet, and the night explodes into fire.

 

 

 

**2046-05-27**

 

Dawn arrives, and with it a complement of the Swedish army, rolling up in dark green trucks. Gabriel and his team all form up around the lone survivor of the water tower guard group, standing behind and around her in silent support.

 

She's twenty at most, her eyes glazed over as she looks blankly at her approaching CO. Jack looks at her out of the corner of his eye, the air between them over-saturating with his sympathy. He went through something similar, before the SEP. Gabriel doesn't know the exact details, Jack doesn't like to talk about it.

 

The traumatized kid is taken away by a friendly enough medic, Wilhelm nodding his respect to her as she passes, and the civilians are shuttled off to the nearest base for safekeeping. The strike team goes with them, Gabriel requisitioning a computer and immediately hailing Adawe.

 

"Good morning, Captain," she answers, rubbing the grit out of her eyes and accepting a cup of coffee from someone outside of the picture. She's wearing a bathrobe and has her hair wrapped up in a scarf. "Or not, I imagine, given that you're calling me at four in the morning." She squints. "With blood on your face. How bad is it?"

 

"We're alive, and we have the virus." he says, scratching at the drying stains on his face. He'd rather not know what he looks like right now. "But we were attacked, yes. We don't know by whom. The entire town is leveled."

 

Adawe closes her eyes for a second, a very human expression of grief crossing her face before she schools it back to business.

 

"Casualties?"

 

"Hundreds, at least. Most of the population. We have about fifty survivors with us, I don't know of any others. Listen," he says, glancing around. He's not sure himself if he's suspecting some sort of foul play or if they've missed some crucial omnic capability, but he knows in his gut that tonight's attack was not random bad luck.

 

Something happens on the other side of the line, and Adawe's eyes widens as an aide shoulders their way forward and hands her a datapad. She takes it and hisses something foul under her breath, her eyes narrowed at her staff.

 

"Why was I not notified at once?" she demands, and Gabriel can barely pick up on the response. Something about a spoofed transmission?

 

Adawe curses some more, tapping at the pad.

 

"Captain, we have a problem," she says as she looks back up at the camera, turning the pad around for him to see. It's the site in Norway, the disabled comm tower by Frøya that they left in the hands of the Norwegians. The Norwegians that are lying slaughtered on the ground, crumpled omnic combat units lying scattered among the bodies.

 

Gabriel inhales sharply.

 

"Show me those units," he says, and Adawe zooms for him. "Those aren't Frøya's."

 

Adawe nods, looking chagrined.

 

"They've been identified as belonging to an omnium in northern Sweden called Frej. My analysts tell me the mythological Freyr and Freya are siblings. We thought they just took names from local mythology, but maybe there's more to it." She adjusts her headwrap. "Anyway. Frej is connected to the global grid, and it must have accessed Frøya's core by now." She looks up from her pad, eyes narrowed. "Are these the same units that attacked you?"

 

Gabriel shakes his head.

 

"No. They were unmarked, and mixed models." Frej's team looks sleek and polished in comparison.

 

She sucks her lips in between her teeth, biting down on them in thought.

 

"Then Frej has already communicated the news. The cat is, as they say, out of the bag. How is your team?"

 

"Scraped and bruised. They can fight, but we're missing most of our gear."

 

Adawes eyes flick to him before going back to her datapad, scrolling through information he dearly wishes she would share with him.

 

"You will have to make do, I'm afraid." She types something, her eyebrows just about coming together at the bridge of her nose. "Right. We have not picked up any major upgrades being distributed over the omnic network, but we have to assume that they have our code and will begin patching against it as soon as they can. We must act before that." She looks up and meets his eyes, and Gabriel sees the iron in her eyes. "Pakistan is too far away."

 

"I know," Gabriel says, and sends her his reworked plan. It's rough, pretty much just a target and acceptance of the inevitable. He sees no other way out of this than straight through. "Piorun, in Gdansk. We can be there in an hour."

 

Adawe nods.

 

"Do it. And Captain?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Call me when you win."

 

* * *

 

They fall through the skies again, and Gabriel misses Jack screaming in wild joy just behind him. He hears him over comms instead but it's not the same, his stomach tied into knots from anxiety.

 

These people are his team. They deserve better than what he's leading them into.

 

"TORBJÖRN!" Wilhelm shouts, despite the mic being taped an inch from his mouth. "YOU LOOK A LITTLE GREEN! ARE YOU NOT ENJOYING THE VIEW?"

 

Jack chuckles.

 

"Please don't throw up on me," he says, body relaxed in the air. He's in his element up here, Gabriel thinks. He wishes he never had to land again.

 

Lindholm, strapped to Jack's chest, make up for Jack's ease by being stiff as a board, his fists clenched in the straps of his harness with all the force of panic behind it. Amari is strapped to his own harness, graceful and relaxed. She's jumped before, plenty of times, but this way she can have her hands free to shoot with.

 

Wilhelm looks to be having fun, his hair streaming like a flag behind him. He looks smaller in his borrowed body armor, the shield gauntlet oversized on his arm. They didn't have time to replace his armor.

 

The other gear isn't a big problem: The Swedes' body armor is about the same as they had already, their comm systems too. The shotguns he wears strapped along his thighs seem okay. Jack's pulse rifle is a loss: It is in every way better than a ballistic one, but they will make do without it. Amari and Lindholm had left the house with their weapons.

 

No, it's Wilhelm Gabriel is worried about. The big man was already rubbing his wrist and elbow on the plane here: The shield gauntlet isn't _made_ to be used without the crusader armor. The human body can't handle the impact forces.

 

His helmet flashes the height alert, and he pulls the chute, Amari smoothly readying her rifle while they stabilize. Jack and Lindholm slow down a little to their left, Wilhelm just behind. Nice and tight, coming in good. The overlay on his visor blinks a little red dot on the roof he's marked for landing, showing him to be on track -- A hatch opens below them and a gun barrel pokes out, and the recoil from Amari's rifle nearly sets them spinning.

 

They land and untangle themselves, and the shield hums as it is energized. Amari takes position as lookout, and Lindholm orders Jack and Gabriel in how to place the charges to blow them through the ceiling and right into the heart of the omnium.

 

This is much easier than Pakistan, he thinks to himself, why didn't they-- Oh. A door slides open, large omnics carrying shields marching out followed by sleeker ones with rifles for arms. Right. That's why.

 

Wilhelm spins to meet them and Amari opens fire, aiming for joints, sensors, anything where she can knock them out of commission with one shot, anything to delay them long enough for them to breach the outer walls.

 

"Jack, defense!" Gabriel barks, and Jack is on his feet in an instant, supporting Amari, skipping a grenade along the roof to bounce in underneath a shield and devastate the front line.

 

"Get in the circle!" Lindholm shouts, and Amari, Jack and Wilhelm back up, Gabriel and Lindholm readying their weapons. It's showtime. "Ready. BREACH!" Lindholm shouts, and presses the detonator button.

 

The floor drops from beneath their feet, and they land in the middle of a heavily armed company of omnics.

 

"GO!" Gabriel shouts at Lindholm, twisting in a circle to clear the area around them. They're right on top of the access console, alarms screaming, more omnics pouring into the room with every second. " _HURRY!_ "

 

Amari grunts, grabbing her shoulder, blood running past her fingers, and Jack is there, jamming a biotic syringe next to the wound. Amari screams as it takes effect, dropping to her knees, but she picks her rifle up again and keeps firing. Gabriel twists, rolling behind a console, forcing a few units who were going for Lindholm to pay attention to him instead. Jack gets them before they manage to get a bead on Gabriel.

 

The cover on the console comes off and Lindholm twists the wires together to patch his cube in. He hits the power up button in the same instant that Wilhelm's shield begins to crack.

 

Their little zone of control is steadily shrinking, Amari and Jack backed in between the splintering shield and the console Lindholm is working on, and then more omnics drop in through the hole in the ceiling and Gabriel finds himself cut him off.

 

He scrambles into the corner, getting behind a group that's almost to the shield. He drops them before they have time to turn around, sees Amari twist to aim directly at him and fire a shot so close to his head he can hear the whoosh of the bullet flying past, bites back a scream a fraction of a second later when shrapnel tears through his cheek, blood spilling hot down his face.

 

" _GABE!_ " Jack shouts, and the idiot is _trying to get to him_ , _god no, he's gonna get hit_ \-- Gabriel spins, blood spattering across his hands from the momentum, one, two three omnics dropping dead --

 

" _YES!_ " Lindholm shouts, pumping his fist in triumph, and Gabriel turns. The little cube is pulsing a gentle green, connected, _they did it, they--_

 

The shield shatters, and Wilhelm turns his back, putting himself between the omnics and his charges, the air in his lungs forced out of him in pained gasps as bullets beat against his body armor. Gabriel sees Jack react, knows for a split second before it happens that he's going to charge in-- No--

 

Jack roars, leaping inhumanly fast, tackling a bastion and wrenching its minigun out of position so that its bullets tears through its brethren, spinning around it like a gymnast jumping between bars, crashing feet first into the back of one of the shield-carrying units and shooting it in the neck when it staggers, rifle in one hand and sidearm in the other, an unstoppable whirlwind of destruction. It's awesome. It's suicidal.

 

Gabriel screams out his rage and throws himself into the chaos, noticing but not feeling the pain when a bullet shears through his leg just beneath the knee and knocks it out from under him, rolling on the floor with his guns booming, scrambling on his way toward Jack, screaming when he sees a melee unit get there first, its hydraulic battering ram striking Jack across the face and sending him spinning, a tooth flying across the room and clattering across the floor to come to rest against Gabriel's bad leg. He sees red and throws himself on the omnic, jamming a shotgun into the vulnerable cabling under the hydraulic arm, emptying the clip into it, ignoring the way the battering ram slams into his side, jostling his insides. He's dead, he knows it, and he's gonna take as many of these bastards down with him as he can.

 

The omnic drops, and Gabriel goes down with it, his injured leg refusing to cooperate, every gasping breath an agony. He rolls, pink froth filling his mouth, managing to lift one shotgun with both hands to shoot the head off a unit on its way to Jack, who is struggling to his knees.

 

He's alive. Gabriel smiles dumbly at him as he begins to drift, all the pain fading away into blessed emptiness. He feels a tingle, recognizes the feel of a biotic field on his skin: it's like swimming in champagne, the world washed in gold and the blue of Jack's eyes, still clear and bright despite the bloodied mess they have made of his face.

 

His head spins, Jack's mouth moving in his narrowing field of vision, blood dripping from his chin onto Gabriel's face as hands tug on his body armor. It hurts.

 

Gabriel tries to keep his eyes open, he really does, but darkness reaches up for him and pulls him into its arms.

 

 

* * *

 

Gabriel wakes to darkness and pain, sensing noise and movement around him. He tries to move, get away, find Jack and get to safety, but his body isn't obeying him, his limbs too heavy, his abdomen throbbing as he tries to pull himself up.

 

He was sedated enough times during the program to know the feeling, but he still fights, his body slow and unresponsive but his mind stubborn enough to throw himself to the side, a spike of white-hot agony shooting up his leg as he gets it moving. Metallic arms restrain him, pushing him back down, and Gabriel twists, desperate, his scream gurgling weakly around the thing shoved down his throat. One by one he loses control of his limbs, feels them lying there, heavy like anchors pulling him down. He is utterly powerless to move them -- no, there, he can close his fingers and there's something, a wire or a tube-- A hand takes his, and it's a human hand, flesh and blood but too small, squeezing his, and his lips are trying to form words--

 

"Captain," someone says, and it's not Jack, "Captain Reyes!" where is Jack is he safe, why can't he see, what is happening-- " _Gabriel!_ "

 

The slap isn't hard, more unexpected.

 

"Calm. Down. Morrison's okay." _Oh_ , his panic supplies and retreats from the top of his mind. "Captain?"

 

Captain. That's him. Where is he? What happened to the omnics? He can't speak, can't move, can't _see_ , but the hand squeezes his fingers and he squeezes back.

 

"We're in a medical jet," the voice says, and he recognizes it now. Amari. Ana, if she has decided that they're on a first name basis now. "Everyone's alive. Somehow." She drops his hand and seconds later he feels fingers on his face, shifting something over his left eye, and he blinks it open.

 

Humans. He's surrounded by humans, not an omnic in sight, Amari crouched at his side with blood on her face and her arm in a sling. _How?_ His eyes roam, searching for a glimpse of Jack, bright hair and gray camo, but that's right, he's wearing green, isn't he, borrowed it from the Swedes...

 

"The virus worked," Amari says. "The omnics turned on each other. Some of them saved us. They carried us out while the rest were fighting."

 

Gabriel barely listens, trying to lift his head off the pillow. God, he feels like he was run over by a truck, knows he has several broken ribs and at least one punctured lung. He might be dying. He can't die yet.

 

A pair of hands grab his arm and he feels the slight tug on the syringe, feels the burn as whatever it is hits his nerves. The pain loses some of its definition, still intense, but somehow he cares less about it.

 

"..ck," he manages, weak, and Amari smiles, looking to the side.

 

"E's over there," a gruff voice says, and Lindholm steps into view, bloody and bruised but otherwise intact. He points over his shoulder with a thumb. "He's pretty banged up, but he's awake. Asked about you, too."

 

Gabriel exhales, finally, letting himself go limp in his bed. Ana helps him raise the backrest until he's halfway sitting up, and then Jack is there, in a bed across the bay. He has bandages wrapped around his head and a brace around his neck, tubes and wires hanging like curtains around him, but he's smiling, gap-toothed and woozy, and Gabriel smiles back.

[x](https://twitter.com/a_squiddy/status/1030167922985979905)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading all the way. Please do leave a comment, and please do shower praise and adoration over [Squiddy ](https://twitter.com/a_squiddy) and [Val](http://asparklethatisblue.tumblr.com/)


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